How To Destroy Society

Have you been to a post office lately? At one point today, the queue went out the door and around the corner — and that was well before the lunchtime rush had even started! Spare a thought, then, for pensioners this Christmas, who may find themselves without cash to spend over the holidays. As ThisIsMoney reports:

As Christmas Day falls on a Tuesday this year, the Department for Work and Pensions will pay weekly pensions and benefits into bank accounts and Post Office Card Accounts on Christmas Eve for those who would normally get the cash on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

But the majority of post office branches will be open only until midday on Christmas Eve and are likely to be busy. It means pensioners with Post Office Card Accounts, who can only access funds from a branch, may not have time to withdraw their cash before Christmas.

And the DWP could so easily have authorised the payments to be made on Friday 21st instead, as in Northern Ireland, allowing pensioners to shop over the weekend.

With the Government tomorrow set to announce the closure of one in five post offices, it is quite clearly intent on destroying the vestiges of our country's post office network and cares nothing for the inconvenience that it is again subjecting the elderly to, despite the crucial contribution that both make to society, especially in rural areas.