The Royal Mail Saga

No doubt like many of you, despite endless emails, I also get masses of post most days, all delivered by my trusty Postman. So I was keenly interested in his recent request to sign the CWU petition 'against the privatisation of the Royal Mail' - reading the CWU Response to the Hooper Review, one might almost believe that Mandleson was recommending the wholesale sell-off of the Royal Mail and the Post Office to some dastardly European operator who would close down half of the network and fire half the staff - probably including my Postman! Trying to understand other views in the debate has been more difficult. The issue is fast becoming a political football with the Royal Mail being kicked about between what The Guardian describes as 'New Labour zealots versus the Luddite Union' , Harriet Harman apparently using it as a 'party leadership contest tool', Mandleson being unhelpfully vague on detail when questioned on both TV and radio, the Tories supposedly proposing full privatisation and the Lib Dems opting for a 'third way' , a sort of ' John Lewis Trust style model'. In fact the Royal Mail does make a profit -£255m in the first nine months of this financial year but weighed down by a pension fund deficit of £9bn. So, yes, it's insolvent but no more so than the banks. Meanwhile the cover article of February's Marketer magazine profiles the Media Director of the Royal Mail, waxing lyrical about the brand strength of the Royal Mail and the fact that according to 2007 Neilsen research, only 30% of e-mail is actually opened and read, compared to 80% for direct mail. And that the Royal Mail is presently investing £1.2bn on modernising its mail sorting processes and apparently is going from strength to strength. So I intend to muddle along and try to monitor the progress of the Royal Mail footie match - for me too much a part of my daily life to be ignored.