The Royal Mail

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

This is our postal service and I have always been very happy with it. There are Post Offices everywhere although I concede that many small rural ones have been closed. The mail seems to get delivered pretty efficiently and it costs no more to post a lettter to London than it does to the Shetland Islands which I don't mind a bit. As far as I know, it costs no more to post a letter from New York to Albany than it does to Los Angeles.

However, there are rumblings here. Postmen are being told to up their average walking speed from 2 mph to 4 mph which I think is excessive, given that when treekking on mountains, I allowed 3 mph + 30 minutes for each 1000 ft of ascent. Worse still, we are told our postal service is out of date compared to many on the continent of Europe. Well, it might be but I have to say that I have always found it more difficult to buy a stamp or post a letter abroad. Maybe, I just don't understand their systems.

So what is the solution to this inefficiency? Privatisation of course. The last resort of any British government that does not know what to do about a problem - that is, pass it on to someone else. There is already talk about potential buyers from the continent, notably the Dutch Post Office.

Same old story - sell it off to foreigners. Steel went to the Dutch and was then bought out by India. Water has gone to the French. British Airports Authority has been bought by the Spanish. And we don't have a car industry to call our own unless you count Morgan which is flyshit. The Germans wish to buy out our share in the Eurostar and no doubt they will succeed. God knows who owns electricity and gas anymore but I bet it ain't us.

On principle, I prefer private enterprise but not always. I do think there are some fundamental national services which should be state owned and managed for the public good. Sure many public service employees think they have a job for life whatever they do. We need to disabuse them of this idea and if they go on frigging strike, let them and don't give in. Maggie did this with the miners and they signed their own death warrant.

No, we should retain the Royal Mail and if needs be, invest in it and give them a kick up the arse at the same time.