For Tony Blair size really does matter. Our rural emergency services - police, ambulance, fire and even the management of our health service - are all being reorganized into bigger units, which are inevitably remote from the people they serve. Now sub-post offices are in the firing line.

First Ministers decide to axe the Post Office Card Account when its current contract expires. Then we learn that the Government subsidy to the Royal Mail, over £150 million, may be withdrawn in next month's Budget.

There are 14,200 post offices in the UK. The Royal Mail have said recently that they need only 4,000 sorting offices to provide a universal delivery service. So what happens to the rest of the 10,000, mostly sub-post offices, many of which are in rural areas, including over 30 in the Ludlow constituency?

A couple of years ago, in the name of modernisation, the Government scrapped the Pension Book and pushed 4.3 million people into opening a Post Office Card Account. Now the Work & Pensions department plans to do away with the card and not to renew the contract when it expires in 2010.

This will be a body blow to sub-post offices, who rely on the cash they can deliver through this card to attract customers. Many of their customers, the elderly and those on benefits, will face hardship if the local post office were to close, especially in rural areas.

How long will it be before Blair realises biggest is not always best?