Downing Street Says » Jim McGovern’s Resignation

» Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Jim McGovern’s Resignation

Asked for a reaction to Jim McGovern s resignation, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that the question of the resignation was probably best directed to a political colleague. On the issue of Royal Mail, Lord Mandelson set out the Government s position in his statement yesterday.

Put that Jim McGovern had said that it beggared belief that the Government thought that the best solution was to have a foreign company take a stake in Royal Mail, the PMS replied that as Lord Mandelson had pointed out yesterday, the status quo was untenable, the service was under threat and the choice that we faced was either downgrading that service or acting now to turn things around and secure Royal Mail s future. The recommendations put forward in the Hooper Review included a partnership with an existing operator, which could help bring about the changes that Royal Mail needed.

Asked if the Prime Minister was confident he could get a vote through on this, the PMS said that the Prime Minister and Lord Mandelson were convinced that the recommendations in the Hooper Review were based on sound argument and they intended to make that argument in the weeks and months ahead.

Put that Jim McGovern had been a member of the Government who had objected to Government policy and why was this considered a party issue, the PMS said that Jim McGovern had set out his position and we had set out ours.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.