Royal Mail's privatisation was planned decades ago

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Soapbox Edward Spalton: Royal Mail's privatisation was planned decades ago

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LIKE Joe Coleman (Soapbox October 31), I deplore the sale of Royal Mail.

Britain created the modern Post Office, using the monopoly power of the state so that costs could be averaged.

A stamp for a letter would cost the same whether delivery was to Auchterarder or Alvaston.

It was truly national, accessible to all and part of the cement which held the country together. The office of postmaster general was a cabinet-level appointment.

That was abolished in 1969 in the run-up to Britain joining the Common Market. The Post Office became a corporation and was gradually split up into separate businesses, such as Parcelforce, Royal Mail and Post Office Counters.

Privatisation is not a matter of choice but is dictated by the Government. Our real government is based in Brussels. It started with an EU directive in 1997, entitled Privatisation of Postal Services.

This began the process by which foreign postal services could cherry-pick the more profitable parts of the operation, gradually extending with successive directives to all classes and weights of post which are now part of a European-wide market.

From 2009, the Royal Mail monopoly was phased out for all sizes of letters. Post offices in other EU countries are being privatised, too. Swedish friends tell me that the post boxes are now much further apart.

So, of course, are sub-post offices. David Miliband had his instructions from Brussels in a letter dated November 28, 2007. It stated: "The transformation programme will involve Post Office Ltd reducing the size of its office network by around 2,500 branches."

The Government tried to pretend that the Network Change Programme was its own plan and set about withdrawing services from post offices so that it could claim that fewer people were using them.

Even those MPs who knew what was happening kept quiet, in line with Foreign Office instructions going back to 1971. So it's not just the wicked Tories who are to blame but Labour and the Lib Dems, too.

There is no point in taking the postal service back into public ownership unless we first nationalise the Government – safely outside the EU. To rub salt into the wounds, a great many Royal Mail shares went to hedge funds in tax havens.