A lack of knowledge in comments

LETTER - Dear Mr Brown, I read with some interest your advertisement feature in the Shropshire Star, where you quite rightly say that "local newspapers are right at the heart of Britain's local communities".

While I applaud such sentiments, I feel they are tinged with a complete lack of national knowledge.

At a time when you are having to backtrack on fiscal policy, being publicly assassinated by ex-colleagues Blair and Prescott and seeing the popularity of the Labour Party hitting an all-time low, you publicly declare "local newspapers are right at the heart of Britain's local communities".

Well Mr Brown, this may come as something of a shock, but . . .

Local schools are at the heart of the community;

Local post offices are at the heart of the community;

Local hospitals are at the heart of the community and the local pub is at the heart of the community.

And what do you do. Nothing, but instigate tax rises and reductions in local spending.

My local community is a rural one, where you seem hell-bent on closing down the rural community and the rural infrastructure.

It is perhaps an indictment of your ignorance for the rural and local community, when you take advertisement space in newspapers to declare "local newspapers are right at the heart of Britain's local community".

Well perhaps you're right. When all the schools and all the post offices and all the hospitals and all the pubs are closed, all we will have left is the local newspaper.

Frank Worsencroft, Whitchurch