Just Who Is This "Public"?

I live in a small rural village. It's lovely. It has a post office but not for long. Following a "public consultation" our post office will close at the end of the month. A lot of our neighbours submitted their opinions to the Post Office. Every one of them said "please keep it open". The only person I know who wants it closed is the man who owns the shop and post office in the next village five miles away. His post office is closing too! I can't imagine any sane individual saying: "close my local convenient post office (even though I only use it on 'high days and holidays')". Can you?

At the moment, the NHS is spending millions of taxpayers' money on a public consultation of the "Darzi report" on the future of NHS services in London. The big change in primary care is the idea of "Polyclinics". The consultation is about to be completed but no findings have been published yet our PCT has now published its plans for the first two polyclinics. The tenders are going out soon. Six more are in the second stage of detailed planning.

I hope the consultation agrees with Lord Darzi but somehow I don't really think it matters. Do you?