I expect that this one third includes most government supporters, funders and lobbyists, so the rest of us can just lump it. In terms of strength of feeling only one person in 25 strongly supports the disposal of yet another public service. I wonder if these are the tiny minority who have their chequebooks at the ready to buy shares before selling them at a profit to absolutely anyone just as happened with earlier privatisations.
There is massive public support for the re-nationalisation of the railways and well over twice as many people believe that former publicly owned utilities such as energy and water should be in the public sector as believe they should remain private. And of course ‘private’ does not mean ‘British’.
The aforementioned utilities have introduced deliberately confusing price structures and rip off consumers more or less as they please – sorry, with the approval of regulators. Furthermore, those of us who do not dodge our taxes contribute to a three times greater subsidy for private railways than British Rail required. Digging deep into the public purse is par for the course be it for G4S, A4e or PFI not to mention the Banks.
Given the positive feelings towards the Royal Mail and the sorry saga of privatisation just touched on above, the opposition to privatisation of the Royal Mail should be no surprise. If not immediately, the Royal Mail will fall into the hands of foreign owners, possibly German or Chinese. Prices will go up even more and services will be degraded - hardly in the interest of the common good.
It’s not just a case of nation-wide coverage that may, for the time being at least, be reluctantly continued under private ownership. There are many other ways to lessen the service – for example no weekend collections or deliveries of letters (and maybe not even every weekday) and maybe you’ll have to install a mailbox at the end of your drive US style.
The Royal Mail is not in Government ownership – it’s ours. And that’s the way it should stay.
No comments:
Post a Comment