Mauling For Mailbox Mandy And Postman Pat

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/ ... ce575844e7

Lord Mandelson - or "Mailbox Mandy" as I guess we should call him now - has come up with a very New Labour solution to the problems of the Post Office.

"The Royal Mail urgently needs to catch up and modernise," he said in characteristic New Labour-speak in his statement in the House of Lords.

He slammed the industrial relations record of the management and unions, saying there were too many strikes. And he welcomed a bid by the Dutch company TNT in a proposed part-privatisation.

But the welcome for these New Labour plans from Old Labour MPs and peers was about as friendly as the greeting a cheery postie on his round gets from the sharp teeth of a snarling pitbull.

Mandy's mauling began immediately after he sat down after delivering - yes, I know, delivering! - his statement.

Unfortunately for him, the first Labour peer on his feet was former postman and Post Office union deputy general secretary Lord Clarke of Hampstead.

Refusing to call his Labour colleague "my noble friend", as is the convention, and instead addressing - yes, I know, addressing! - him as "the minister", he said: "The final nail has been driven into the coffin of a once great public service, the Post Office."

Ouch!

But in the Commons, "Postman Pat" McFadden got an even worse mauling, led - not surprisingly - by "the Beast of Bolsover", Dennis Skinner, who said privatisation had patently failed in other areas.

Ouch!

Former Cabinet Minister Peter Hain then bared his teeth, saying Mandy was "opening the door to full-scale privatisation, against the wishes of the Labour Party".

Ouch!

Even loyalist Lindsay Hoyle - a soppy labrador of a backbencher - said ending bulk mail's "free ride at the expense of taxpayers" was the answer, not privatisation.

Ouch!

Kate "Tally" Hoey, hardly a Labour leftie, said the Government's plans were "the slippery slope towards privatisation".

Ouch!

John McDonnell, the Campaign Group chairman, said Mandy's statement was "privatisation whatever you dress it up as".

Ouch!

And Gordon Prentice told MPs: "I'm nost supporting any legislation which privatises it."

Ouch!

Scots leftie Katy Clark said Mandy's plans were "against the spirit of Labour's manifesto commitment".

Ouch!

And finally, Frank Field - like his friend Kate Hoey, hardly a leftie - accused the Government of a raid on Post Office pensions.

Ouch yet again!

Tony Blair (once accused of being somebody's poodle, as I recall...) famously said the New Labour project would only be complete "when the Labour Party learns to love Peter Mandelson".

On this evidence, the New Labour project is far from complete, because Old Labour hates his proposals for the Post Office with a vengeance and is declaring: Return to Sender.