Andrew Simpson criticises 'hypocritical' Labour MP who puts loyalty to party bosses before Northampton's best interests

11.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 20th Mar 2008

Labour MP for Northampton North, Sally Keeble failed to vote in Parliament last night to suspend the government's devastating programme of Post Office closures.

As a consequence she has made sure that the closure of 4 post offices in Northampton North will go ahead despite claiming at the time of the consultation on the closures that she was 'opposing proposals to close 4 post offices in our area' and that she had 'made sure the post office listens to what you say'.

Liberal Democrat Candidate for Northampton North Andrew Simpson, commented: "Mrs Keeble is being hypocritical. Locally she said she was opposing the post office closures but in Parliament she hasn't followed this up by voting to save them. When it came to the crunch she chose to put Labour party bosses in London before the interests of Northampton. It has never been more clear -Labour is going to ruin our post office network."

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

• Last night a motion in Parliament to suspend the government's current round of 2,500 Post Office closures was defeated by 20 votes after Sally Keeble and other Labour MP's failed to support the Post Office network.

• Andrew Simpson has fought hard to save Northampton's Post Offices. More than 800 people signed his petition to save 4 local branches in Northampton North.

• The Conservatives now oppose the closures, even though they shut 3,500 post offices when they were in office. But they have no serious proposals to revive the post office network.

• The Lib Dems are the only party to have fully costed proposals. Lib Dem policy on Royal Mail and the Post Office is available at: http://www.libdems.org.uk/media/documents/policies/RoyalMail2006.pdf