Recognising the danger of postal liberalisation – comment
I’m no particular fan of Richard Littlejohn’s political views, but I would recommend his book To Hell in a Handcard, for an insight into our national preoccupation with addressing symptoms rather than causes.
To overcome prison overcrowding, the ‘new thinking’ is evening-only custodial sentences – a kind of criminals B&B. Tuck them up warmly at night so they’re refreshed for the following day’s crime.
At a time when it is abundantly clear that we need a national ID scheme and a national police force to tackle organised crime, we get police league tables – with the prospect that our police force will soon feel as disillusioned and betrayed as the teaching profession.
The same thinking is about to be applied to our postal service, with the decision to introduce immediate competition for bulk mail services way ahead of European liberalisation of post.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for competition and consumer choice, but instead of recognising that this great British institution has commercial issues it needs to address (not least the perception among business users that it is overpriced and supporting its objective of becoming a major European player), we choose to chop its legs off.
We leave it with its statutory obligation to the uneconomic ‘universal service’, but welcome in any overseas competitor who wants to take a piece of the more lucrative end of its market. In any other country, the Government would be looking for ways to both secure the growth of a major domestic corporation and secure the employment of its work force, rather than forcing it to compete with one hand tied behind its back.
What happens when we have damaged it so much that the ‘universal service’ simply can’t be fulfilled? What happens when the European market is deregulated, but Royal Mail is no more than a fringe player? Postal service leagues tables?
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