Thursday, December 14, 2006
Burying Bad News: They Are At It Again
While Lord Stevens announced the findings of his inquiry into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Government announced that 2,500 Post Offices would close. Another good day to bury bad news. Astonishingly Sky have moved away from Ipswich and are staying with Lord Stevens. So far they have spent twenty seconds on the Post Office closures. Number Ten will be pleased.
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25 comments:
All in Tory (rural) areas ?!
The real question is what was the procedure?
Did the P.O. hand a list to the Government who then weeded out the Urban/Marginal/Labour seats?
Glad you've picked this up as a story Iain - I was just deciding whether I could get away with making it relevant to one of your other posts! I'd been listening to Radio 5, and when Lord Stevens finished his statement they reported the Post Office announcement had been made. I'm not clear if the Government have a 'justifiable' reason for the timing; having looked at the Order of Business in the Commons, it clearly wasn't an announcement there that had been pre-set some time ago.
And approximately zero seconds on the loans for lordships investigation...
BBC are reporting 3,000, Iain.
But it is indeed superbly timed if you happen to work for the government. I'm surprised they didn't make more use of the goings-on in Ipswich as well.
I also don't see the point in the Diana report either. Most of us never thought there was a conspiracy, and those who do are not going to be swayed by this. A handsome waste of £4 million.
Whilst I was indulging in a few tears last night about the demise of Post Offices, Mrs Weasel quietly asked me what it was that justifies their continued existence.
Now I cannot think of one thing the post offices do that could not be done online, or by some other method than a permanent physical presence.
A central argument is about isolated communities and the elderly. Well It is not yet against the law for the elderly to have internet access, or bank accounts.
Neither is it necessary to trek out for stamps - you can print your own - or get parcels weighed.
A man in a van could do the work, in the same way the postbus system works.
Have I missed something, or is our attachment to Post Offices purely sentimental?
Why do so many female Labour MPs have such terrible hair?
How were they ever called "babes" is beyond me.
On this occassion the conspiracy theory fails as date of Post Office closure announcement has been known for more than a week, that is before the murders.
www.guardian.co.uk/post/story/0,,1968272,00.html
Post Office closures got bumped to number 3 on 'World At One', and it isn't even the lead story on the Daily Telegraph website.
The spinmeisters at No 10 must be very happy indeed. Let us watch out for any other news about loans/yates/gordo leaking out of downing street...
i thought the real bad news, for the nation, was "finding out" that diana was not a martyr
Well, the bad news did surface at the start of the week but even so, I'm confused at Sky's priorities
1. Parasite dies in road accident 9 years ago.
2. Serial Killer on the loose in Suffolk.
3. New York city destroyed by atomic explosion.
I mean, obviously, they should be leading with the Ashes!
That's only the first piece of bad news they have buried today. The second, just breaking on the BBC website, is the long-expected news that Blair has been interviewed by the police on cash for peerages.
We need to keep a sharp eye out - this is clearly an excellent day to bury all sorts of unpleasantness.
Oh, and surprise, surprise, today is the day that Blair is interviewed.
Burying Bad News: They Are At It Again.
http://saveyourpostoffice.blogspot.com/
More Bad News apparently. the PMOS seems to be confirming that Blair has been intervied by the cops...
And the Tony Blair questioning! Duplicitous bastards.
And of course, for the ultimate in burying bad news, we now have news that Bliar has been interviewed by Yates of the Yard's team...
There is lots of bad news to bury today, isn't there?
To be fair, I reckon every day is a bad news day for this government (can you remember the last good one?) so they are bound to coincide with some major story or another.
Murdoch empire pleasing New Labour?
Shome mishtake shurely? What do you think they're after this time?
Yes, and how about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6179911.stm?
Iain,
I don't understand why we tories get so hot under the collar about the closure of post offices. The ones which will be shut down are unprofitable and are a burden on the taxpayer. Why shouldn't they be shut down if they cannot compete with other retailers and other service providers? If we believe in the free market then we shouldn't beat up the Govt for doing something that is inevitable. We can complain about the Govt forcing people to have their benefits paid directly into their bank accounts but now the Post Office no longer has a monopoly on many of the services its offers such as sending post/parcels, inefficient and unprofitable post offices should be closed.
As the Post Office closure story has been widely trailed all week (usually with a higher figure for closures than the number announced today) I think you're getting pretty desperate to try and spin it this week. Anyway, just how much extra money are the Tories willing to put into keeping these post offices open?
Strangley Ruth Kelly has delayed the announcement of the changes to draft East of England Plan (500,000 homes inthe green fields of East Anglia!) until next Tuesday. It was planned for today.
Perhaps they think it is good news?
Continued expansion of Heathrow and Stansted was announced in the smokescreen- not very green!
Has anyone mentioned that all of this stems from EU Directives yet? I'll bet not...
DK
The subsidies for Post Offices I think normally come under the phrase 'market failure'.
And I think one of the Directives you are after is 2002/39/EC and the European Postal Services Directive.
All very jolly.
They have also slipped out the fact that the SFO investigation into the Saudi arms deals have been dropped.
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