Steve challenges Labour MP's City Post Office hypocrisy

2.15.00pm GMT Thu 20th Mar 2008

Lib Dem Dr. Steve Goddard campaigning against Post Office closures with Richard Huzzey

Liberal Democrat candidate for Oxford East Steve Goddard has challenged Andrew Smith MP to a public debate on the future of Oxford city's post offices after accusing him of saying one thing to his electorate and another in the House of Commons on post office closures.

Steve Goddard said: "Once more, Andrew Smith has said one thing in his constituency and done the opposite in London when leaned on by the government. For him to claim to be campaigning against post office closures in Oxford East only at the first opportunity to vote against a motion to suspend the closure programme is hypocrisy, and will be recognised as such by the people of Oxford."

"Andrew Smith should have joined with nineteen of his Labour colleagues in voting, with the Liberal Democrats, against post office closures - instead, he once again demonstrated that he is Gordon Brown's yes-man in Oxford: a serial loyalist to a government that has lost its way."

"So it's time for Mr Smith to come clean with the people of Oxford East: why does he pretend to oppose post office closures in his constituency only to vote for them in the House of Commons? Why has he misled his constituents by claiming to oppose post office closures when his actions prove he supports them? Will he

meet me to debate this issue, which is so vital to so many people in Oxford East?"

Related Link:

*Sign Oxford City Lib Dems' petition against Post Office closures HERE*.