'We've been gagged by Royal Mail'

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 27th May 2004

A South West Liberal Democrat MEP claims today that his campaign to save local post offices has been 'gagged' by Royal Mail and the Post Office. Managers demanded that Graham Watson MEP remove all images of post offices and even post boxes from his campaign leaflets, claiming that Royal Mail should not be seen to endorse a political candidate's stance.

Speaking to the Western Morning News Mr. Watson said,

"We've been gagged. Liberal Democrats have been working very hard to save local post offices from closure, and have been gagged by the Post Office management. We have been doing a lot of work in the European Parliament to protect and promote local services and, at the same time, local members have been campaigning hard to keep individual post offices open. We wanted to illustrate those campaigns in our leaflets."