Post offices disappear from London

Royal Mail is facing a legal challenge over its plans to shut 169 post offices in London, the Evening Standard reports today.

The branches, which amount to a fifth of the network, face the axe under a fast-track closure programme.

The proposals provoked protest from all the main political parties, with one MP saying it was a "kick in the teeth" for Londoners.

The capital has already lost more than 300 post offices in four years, with numbers cut from 1,175 to 849. Royal Mail says more branches must go to stem losses of £3 million a week.

However, the shortfall of £3 million a week causing these cuts pales almost into insignificant compared to the £115 million a week (net) subsidy the Government is lavishing on the wasteful EU.

How is this justified, when countless post offices are closing due to a fraction of this amount, yet auditors haven't been able to confirm how the EU is spending the billions it has been given every year for the last 13 years running?

Certainly no MP who recently voted to boost our payments to the EU by an astonishing 63% can claim to be 'standing up' for any post offices facing closure, without leaving themselves open to charges of utter hypocrisy.

The cutbacks come despite new figures showing London has just one branch for every 8,460 people - compared to the national average of one branch for 3,860.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone said the consultation should be extended to 12 weeks, adding: "London's post offices provide vital support for those who are most in need, particularly the elderly, disabled and those with young children. For many Londoners who do not have a bank account, the post office is an amenity they cannot do without."

Labour MP Kate Hoey said: "Londoners will be angry and frustrated at the sham nature of this consultation. The Post Office has already made up its mind. This is a body blow to communities across London, particularly the most vulnerable in the city."

The Conservative shadow minister for London, Bob Neill, said the closures would reduce the network to a shell.

"Labour are putting swathes of the London post office network under threat and putting people's livelihoods on the line yet they won't reveal the extent of post office closures until after the election," he said.

Liberal Democrat business spokesman Sarah Teather said: "Today's announcement is a kick in the teeth for Londoners. We already have a second-class service with half as many post offices per head as the rest of the UK. It is no wonder we have to queue so long to post a parcel."

Royal Mail said the vast majority of Londoners would still live within one mile by road of the nearest branch, and claim that nearly 90 per cent of the capital's population would see no change in their nearest branch.

Anita Turner, Post Office Ltd's network development manager for London, said: "Taking the decision to close any post office branch is always very difficult and we know it will cause concern to many of our customers.

"Post Office Ltd's aim is to continue to provide essential services and support retail businesses and the local economy in as many communities as possible, subject to the minimum access criteria set by the Government."

Those wishing to register their views should contact http://www.postoffice.co.uk/networkchange or write to Post Office Ltd at Freepost Consultation (no stamp required) or email consultation@postoffice.co.uk

BAE to lose billions in defence cuts

BAE Systems will have billions of pounds worth of government orders torn up under budget cuts being drawn up this month by ministers - reports The Observer.

Defence sources said the government would scrap plans to buy four more Astute nuclear submarines from BAE, worth £3.5bn.

Ministers also want to cancel their contract to buy a third tranche of Eurofighter jets, worth more than £5bn, from the company.

The government wants to make up to £15bn of cuts in its military budget over the next decade as it tries to rein in public spending (despite agreeing to increase our payments to the audit-failing EU's budget by an astonishing 63% - to £6bn net or £11.5bn gross a year).

The defence industry and the MoD have been locked in fraught negotiations about how to make the savings.

The government is also set to axe plans to order two further Type 45 destroyers from shipbuilding partners VT Group and BAE. The two companies are building six destroyers, which cost about £600m apiece (only a few weeks worth of our net payments to the EU budget), but had hoped to receive an order for another two.

Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners, said defence companies have been trying to co-operate with the government over how best to make the cuts.

'The industry in my view will have done its utmost to support the government over its financial constraints,' he said. He added that he expected the Royal Navy to bear the brunt of the budget cuts.

A spokeswoman for the ministry said: 'The MoD is currently in the middle of its planning round, when it considers a very wide range of options as a matter of course. We are not prepared to comment on any specific proposals before the planning round has run its full course.'

Not only are these cuts potentially over-stretching our armed forces even further than at present, and possibly even putting military lives at risk by trying to over-extend the life of old equipment, but they could also cause the loss of hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs at BAE's British plants.

Yet another example of the utterly misplaced priorities of the government and those MPs who irresponsibly approved the 63% increase in our payments to the audit-failing EU.

That's billions of pounds a year that could be used to prevent these cuts, if they weren't being handed to the EU instead.