Royal Mail and the risks of privatisation

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Chris Nicholson (Comment, 28 June) would have us flog the Royal Mail at bargain basement prices without learning the disastrous lessons of privatisations. He doesn't talk about the major comparable privatisations – the railways and utilities – where the taxpayer was ripped off, is subsiding the private sector with several billion pounds a year, and paying massively inflated prices. Instead, he bases his economic argument on the Forensic Science Service which bears no relation to a major logistics and communications industry. More relevant still is the privatisation of the Dutch Postal Service run by TNT, which was to be a model for the UK. TNT is now in trouble with service reductions and chaos. Need should serve the public, not greed. Royal Mail operates in a competitive market but the failures of regulation have warped the market and would affect the company regardless of ownership.

Nicholson's criticism of protecting Parcelforce seems self-defeating as it now turns an impressive profit and was worth protecting as a future revenue stream. He claims waiting to sell Royal Mail would be "short-changing taxpayers", but experience has shown that rushing to flog our state assets is a far better way to rob the Treasury, as we learnt through the sale of BT when shares rose by over 30% in a day. Billy Hayes

General secretary, Communication Workers Union


• If Royal Mail is privatised, workers' jobs will be axed, services and postal deliveries will be cut (particularly in rural areas) on the grounds that they are not commercially viable, prices will steadily increase to boost profits, the directors will award themselves massive salary increases and performance-related bonuses (inevitably claiming comparability with other boardroom fat cats) and, in due course, the industry will be taken over by an overseas multinational.

Dr Pete Dorey

Cardiff University