Letters: Lost post in rural Britain

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These letters are published in the print edition of The Independent, 14 September, 2013

The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have already cut rural incomes and services with something resembling derangement. The Agricultural Wages Board has been abolished; the disappearance of everything from libraries to bus services has been horrific. And now, the Royal Mail is to be privatised.
If Ed Miliband were to announce that the next Labour government would reverse this privatisation, then not only would he sweep the countryside that both Coalition parties have abandoned, but he would also stop that privatisation, since no buyer would take the risk.

No section of society is more excluded from the national conversation than the rural working class. Let that wrong begin to be righted. When safe Labour seats first emerged in the 1920s, they were mostly in rural areas. The solid Labour vote here in County Durham, while Tyneside and Teesside were much harder nuts to crack, has always had several parallels around the country. The Conservatives and what are now the Liberal Democrats have never had their imagined ancestral right to represent the countryside in Parliament. But even if they had, they would now have lost any such claim.

David Lindsay, Lanchester, Co Durham

The Government might try to reassure those living in the less populated parts of the UK that they will still pay the same price for a stamp as those living in cities. Will there be any safeguard, however, against a commercial operator making fewer deliveries to such places: every three days, for example, to save money?

Phil Mason, Northallerton, North Yorkshire

Could somebody point out where in the Conservative or Lib Dem manifesto the privatisation of Royal Mail was promised?

The Tories push on with their dogmatic intention to sell off the people’s assets to feather the nests of their chums, and in consequence destroy great institutions developed over centuries. No wonder the people do not trust politicians.

Tony Chabot, Birmingham

I wonder what Her Majesty thinks about the Royal Mail privatisation.

David Ridge, London N19