Brighton Pavilion MP David Lepper makes a spirited defence of his refusal to vote to save our post offices (Letters, March 28). But he must surely realise that extra cash to support financially struggling but essential public services is never going to work in the face of Government action to undermine them.

As long as the Labour and Conservative parties, who between them have presided over 5,000 post office closures in the past 20 years, continue to view post offices as businesses required to make a profit - while at the same time taking away their role in issuing, for example, car tax discs - their closure is inevitable.

And yet this is the very policy Mr Lepper claims to support. Is it any wonder that people are disengaging with electoral politics when our MPs so often say one thing and then do another?

  • Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for South-East England and parliamentary candidate for Brighton Pavilion

When considering David Lepper's comments on the shameful post office closures, I think it is essential that we keep in mind his membership of a party whose careful attention to the minutiae of accuracy, truthfulness and the keeping of manifesto promises are beyond compare and make judgement accordingly.

  • Chris Reader, Springfield Road, Brighton

David Lepper and his colleague Celia Barlow need to show a bit of respect to the constituents they are supposed to serve when it comes to their actions over post office closures. To be clear, what they voted against in Parliament on March 19 was the following motion put forward by the Conservative Party: "This house regrets the proposal to close up to 2,500 post offices, recognises the vital role post offices play in local communities and notes the concern and unpopularity among the general public of closing such a large portion of the network."

For them to vote against this on the one hand while on the other campaign in their constituencies in support of individual branches threatened with closure is hypocrisy and cynicism of the highest order.

Mr Lepper says he agrees with The Argus that Government should use taxpayers' money to subsidise our post offices (Comment, March 20), but the reason these closures are taking places is because the EU directive on competition in postal services requires member states to withdraw state subsidy for postal services by 2011.

Mr Lepper and Mrs Barlow should be well aware of this, given that it was their Labour Government that failed to prevent the directive being adopted.

What the "Tory stunt in Parliament" achieved was to flush out the hypocrisy of Mr Lepper and Mrs Barlow's position towards the many elderly and vulnerable residents of Brighton and Hove who use these post offices. Voters won't forget this sort of behaviour in a hurry.