IN spite of Thatcher and Blair, community spirit still survives, though you may have to look for it. A good place to look is a local post office. However, some 2,500 post offices are expected to be shut in Britain by the end of 2009. This includes rural a

IN spite of Thatcher and Blair, community spirit still survives, though you may have to look for it. A good place to look is a local post office.

However, some 2,500 post offices are expected to be shut in Britain by the end of 2009. This includes rural and remote areas, where the post office is quite literally the heart of a community.

This whole wilful destruction is a New Labour classic and shows why, in a nutshell, even the ever-faithful have turned on them.

Having already closed 6,000 post offices since 1997, it issues press releases saying it wants to 'help the Post Office modernize, restore profitability, invest in new products and look at innovative ways to deliver services.'

We know what this means. Senior Royal Mail management are preparing the ground for a huge sell-off of the postal service.

It is the same senior management that has been responsible for introducing 'flexible' work practices that have demoralized what was once the most loyal workforce in the country.

New Labour is happy to subsidize a failed bank; support the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan; and buy a useless Trident nuclear weapon system costing up to £20 billion.

But New Labour refuses to subsidise a true public service that costs, in relative terms, peanuts. That is why the campaign of this paper to Keep Our Post Offices is so important.

JOHN SMITHEE

Kingsley Avenue

Wisbech