Making a right royal mess of postal services

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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The Postal Services Bill, providing for the sell-off of Royal Mail to a private company, is said to contain a ghastly mistake.

Such was the rush to draft it, in the hope of popping another $8 billion into the Government's Santa sack asap, that no provision was made to ensure any future owner will keep the Queen's head on the stamps.

This sounds more like an oversight by a government in a hurry than a deliberate act of lèse-majesté. Anyway, the last thing a foreign company taking over our postal service would want is to overhaul its monarchical trappings.

When the Germans took over the Royal Family itself they didn't tinker with the brand too much, did they? As the row over the costly decision to rebrand the post office as Consignia showed — a decision swiftly reversed under public pressure — there's substantial public affection for the idea of the Royal Mail.

At present, the Queen's head on stamps and the “Royal” in “Royal Mail” combine to give the fuzzy impression that the prompt and inviolate delivery of post is a sacred office of the state — rather than, say, a money-making scheme run by a flaky coalition of private interests piggybacking on the reputation and manpower of a public service.

As a heroic rogue postie — writing under the pseudonym Roy Mayall — has revealed, the latter is much closer to the truth. Postmen stagger around under ever greater volumes of junk mail, which they're not entitled to refuse to deliver.

And "downstream access” by private mail companies — none of which delivers a single letter or package, instead profiting from acting as middlemen — is “subsidised at the rate of about 2p for every letter”.

The service, as anyone accustomed to greeting the first post with the words “Afternoon, Postie!” knows, is groaning under the strain. Most days my front doormat is the scene of Royal Mail roulette: package for us, letter for me, letter for number 41, letter for us, letter for someone at the same number house in a street of a similar name; letter for number 37, letter for us, etc etc...

Amazon deliveries are dispatched and don't arrive; but instead, here's my next-door neighbour's Lovefilm DVD as a consolation prize.

It may be that abolishing the “last mile” monopoly and the universal service requirement would open up a brave new era of private-sector efficiency (though if I was living in the Hebrides I'd hae ma doots). But whether half-privatised or wholly privatised, what we have now and will have in the future has precious little to do with the crown.

Far from trying to guarantee that Her Maj stays on the stamps, Buckingham Palace should be lobbying to ensure that any future owner keeps her mug well out of it.

[Wessex]

Excellent , at last the message is getting through to the fleetum streetum hacks regarding DSA .A big thanks to Roy for this.
The website is part of the Daily Mail group so support will be growing amongst their readers as well as the Mirror 's who will be supporting us posties as well.So support from opposite ends of the political spectrum .

[genesis]

I Just encountered an example of private efficiency with dhl parcels ,using a private works van , loaded with parcels that you could see through the windows , I struck up a conversation with the assistant in the passenger seat who told me that he would mind the van whilst the driver went off with the package,that was between sips of his bottle of strong cider, explaining that they didnt have any packets to deliver tomorrow but would have 90 on wednesday.
Shape of things to come? I think.

[dvbuk55]

Who cares if the Queens head is on a stamp. When they called it Consignia did anyone worry that no one understood what it meant or if the Queens head was still a motif?

[Wessex]

I think I would prefer the Queen's fizzog to that of Herman van Rompuy , mind you we have had a lucky escape it could have been Mandleson's.