Labour’s greatest business betrayal has been accomplished without words of public dissent.
Assured by undertakings from Czech sphinx Daniel Kretinsky, 80 per cent of shareholders voted in favour of his EP Group’s £3.6billion purchase of
Royal Mail owner International Distribution Services (IDS).
Sell-out merchant Keith Williams, IDS chairman, hailed the deal. He claims it will preserve ‘the unique heritage’ of the Royal Mail and asserted that ‘legally binding undertakings’ have been endorsed by the Government.
Those undertakings are certain to be challenged by economic events. The Royal Mail will now be loaded with £3billion of debt (in addition to £2billion on its books) in a world haunted by Trumpian uncertainty.
Read across from Britain’s venerated postal delivery service to the financial vandalism at our water companies.
Privatised with no debt on their balance sheets, the National Audit Office, in a newly released report, found that uncaring, financially-driven overseas ownership resulted in £70billion of debt being loaded on.
Some ten of the 16 companies are not earning enough to cover their interest rate bill, let alone deal with the sewage.
How on earth Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds allowed himself to be convinced that Royal Mail could satisfy the pay and job demands of the unions, invest in improving the service and meet horrendous borrowing costs all at the same time, is impossible to know.
Behind the scenes, the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee was fighting back against Kretinsky before the votes had been counted. It fears a trial of a new ‘optimised delivery model’ will gut the roles of the postie and Parcelforce.
Disgracefully, the big winners from the deal will be senior executives, who connived in the disposal, and City bankers and advisers, set to collect £145million in fat fees.
These funds could have been spent on improving services to the public. It is a case of Labour combined with a grasping billionaire against the public interest.
