Post Office closure a huge mistake
THERE is great excitement that the Post Office is to take on the nation's banks and launch a current account.
While supporters hail this as a "major step forward in how we bank in this country" and glow with revolutionary zeal, some of us remember it when it was called Girobank. Then it became the Alliance & Leicester. Then Santander. That's progress, I suppose.
One of the new bank's biggest selling points is, apparently, the fact there are more than 12,000 post office branches in the country. That number is pretty impressive if it's true but imagine how it could be even better if the 2,500 branches that have been closed during the past few years were still open for business.
The Post Office closure programme was one of the worst decisions taken by the last, and indeed any, government and every time you hear Ed Miliband or Ed Balls bang on about the importance of the high street, do not forget it was the Labour Party that helped ring its death knell by closing so many branches that were at the heart of communities.