County Councillor for Chester Peter Byrne threw doubts over Chester Conservatives' tactics this week at the County's Environment Committee.

When Conservative Parliamentary candidate Stephen Mosley criticised the government over Post Office closures, the Labour Councillor revealed how Councillor Mosley uses scare tactics over closures.

"He is an expert on supposedly saving things which he alleges are doomed. In 2005 he claimed to have saved Handbridge Post Office even though at the time nobody was threatening it. Only recently, he claimed to have stopped the closure of a school in his area - though it was never on any list of closures. He did, however, vote for the closure of Boughton St. Paul's.

"And he has persuaded many people that the city's walls are falling down because of neglect, and once again there is no evidence for this apart from the fact that they are 2000 years old and cannot be perfect."

Councillor Byrne said afterwards that he was appalled at the scare tactics being employed by the Tory candidate. Instead of entering into political debate, Chester's Tories were inventing stories and then claiming to have saved Chester people from dreadful consequences which only existed in their own imagination.

"There is an argument to be had over proposed Post Office closures," said Councillor Byrne, "but it is about whether failing commercial organisations should be baled out by taxpayers' money. If Chester's Conservatives want to re-nationalise the Post Office, then they should say so. If they don't want to do that, they should concede the argument."

Please post your comments in the box below.  Please note all comments are moderated and will not appear immediately.