Why new Labour really 'saved' the Post Offices:

A few weeks back Peter Mandelson apparently championed a policy to save the Post Offices from threats of closure. A host of New Labour MPs, who had campaigned to keep these amenities open at local level, and then voted for their closure (if they bothered to vote at all), breathed a sigh of relief. Now they could claim to be saviours of this essential public service even if it was their lot who had imperiled it in the first place.

Now the real reason why the post offices were saved isrevealed however. New Labour intend to part privatise the service- and endanger up to 50,000 jobs in the process.

Post Offices have only been saved so that the costs associated with running it can be bumped off the balance sheet, and treasury coffers can be boosted by the sale. As ever, with PFI, there will be be no real saving, and while the risks of running the service will continue with the government any profits will be skimmed off by the private sector. No wonder this practice was so readily embraced by big business.

The usual, and numerous criticisms, of PFI will be be as appropriate with this deal as they are elsewhere. New Labour however, remain wedded to this accountancy sleight of hand.