When local Lib Dems canvassed opinion about the prospective closures at the end of last year, it was clear that everyone bar none was against the closure, and feared for the outcome if the main post office in Rye was the only option.

Reading the letters from local people week on week, it is clear that the Post Office network is letting Rye down.

In my column on the Observer website, I have, in the past, praised Michael Foster the Labour MP for the effort he has put in to try to keep the Tilling Green post office (and others in Hastings) open.

This effort has been to no avail, and has been cheapened by Michael's vote with the Government at Westminster, backing their incompetent handling of the Post Office situation. Needless to say, current Government policy hits our most vulnerable hardest, and more often than not, our rural communities comparatively harder than our urban communities (although there are aspects of regeneration to be considered for urban communities as well).

Over in Hastings, the Labour Party has come unstuck, 'misleading' people (in the words of Michael Foster) that they had managed to save the Old Town post office. We will have to wait until early Friday morning for the results of the Hastings Borough Council elections, to see whether or not Labour has been punished for this kind of brass neck.

But the Conservatives also must be careful. They have criticised Labour for the spin they have put on the whole post offices business, but are not so quick to admit that 3500 post offices were closed under the last Conservative Government.

David Cameron may be trying to stake his claim to new political territory as champions of the vulnerable and the excluded, but it does not wash.

The Conservatives would have you believe that they are the answer to the problems of 11 years of Labour.

It is my firm belief that they are not.

There is an alternative to both Labour and the Conservatives at the local elections and also at the General Election.

There is a party that is well-known for its determination to support the self-determination and self-sufficiency of local communities. A party that started to campaign against the closure of local post offices in 2006, long before the Conservatives even caught a whiff of the potential political capital to be had, given the Government's appalling handling of the issue.

That party is the Liberal Democrat Party. And it is my role as the parliamentary campaigner to try to persuade you that it is the Liberal Democrats who are the future for our constituency. When the Government is clearly failing to be 'on their side', and the calibre of the Conservatives is questionable, we Liberal Democrats must demonstrate that there is another political way.

Rest assured, I will be doing all I can to persuade you!