Privatise the Royal Mail

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... -Mail.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

At first blush, many will welcome Lord Mandelson's decision to take on the Labour Left, and the union dinosaurs, in pursuit of part-privatisation of the Royal Mail.

After all, as a global free market in postal services inches ever closer, there isn't the slightest chance that the company can survive any longer in the stifling embrace of the state.

But before we leap aboard the Business Secretary's bandwagon, consider that the parlous state of the Royal Mail is the result of it remaining, unreformed, in the state sector, under 12 years of Labour Government (and the Tories before them).

Post offices have been run down and thousands closed, the second post scrapped, 15million letters a year lost, yet the price of the first class post has soared.

And for the last six years of this disastrous decline, it had a chief executive, Adam Crozier, who came from the private sector and was paid accordingly (£3million last year). He didn't make the slightest difference, either.

That's why partial privatisation isn't going to help. The business needs to tackle the unions and impose private sector working practices.

Merely selling a stake to a foreign partner won't achieve this. As long as management decisions are driven by politics and not economics, its future is bleak.

Only a full scale privatisation - with proper protection for the universal delivery obligation - gives the Royal Mail any chance at all of long term survival.

[not me]

tackle the unions and impose private sector working practices.

ahh glad its all down to the workers then

[Stormproof]

the price of the first class post has soared

26p for a 1st class stamp in 1998, ok so its virtually doubled but so has everything else

[Big Daz]

WFMTPB

The Daily mail has its finger on the pulse again of the british people.

[dvbuk55]

the price of the first class post has soared

26p for a 1st class stamp in 1998, ok so its virtually doubled but so has everything else

Not everything else - my wage hasn't doubled in 10 years - the workload might have.

[BB brother]

Insult to every hard workin postie.lazy ill researched journalism.

We're gonna get a lot of this nonsense in the next few months unfortunatley.There was a good piece in the times today.Unbelievable how quick the government is heaping the blame on Crozier and Lieghton instead of holding thier hands up for ten years of p#ss poor handling .What a f##kin shower!

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