It believes its plan to close the Milverton office is softened by the fact that the nearest alternative, in Clarendon Street, is a mere half-mile away. Why, that's a ten-minute walk.

And walking ten minutes to a post office does not sound too high a price to pay to ensure the future of the whole post office 'network', does it?

Except...except it would be a ten-minute walk only if you happened to live in the Milverton post office. Most people who use that office already live a few minutes' walk away from it.

If you live at the top of Guy's Cliffe Avenue, for example, then you have to walk the best part of a mile to get there.

Adding half a mile (it's actually more like three-quarters of a mile) turns a walkable journey into one for which many would rather use a car.

And that all assumes the customer is fit and healthy. Many who use post offices are not, and many are infirm. They seem to have been forgotten amid all this talk of 'modernising'.

It is sad too to see James Plaskitt MP, who has long campaigned against post office closures, repeat the weasel words of Post Office Ltd in his recent statement on the matter.

The Post Office's PR operation is possibly the most shameless in the business, presenting this week's announcement of the closure of the Coventry sorting office as wonderful news, and featuring the word 'closure' not even once.

It boasted: "Royal Mail today confirmed that plans to make a £70 million investment in new buildings, technology and its employees will go ahead."

So what will become of the depot? It will be "combined" with Northampton's. Or, as you or I would say, closed.

It's pitiful stuff, engendering mistrust of what was once a great British institution.

Reliability should be the Post Office's watchword; yet, through sophistry and obfuscation, it is proving unworthy of our goodwill.

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