In the last ten working days the Royal Mail has delivered letters to my house twice. On those two occasions I received my large piles of snail mail in the late afternoon. I also receive, on average, two letters a week addressed to another house in my street. In that same period two CDs and one DVD, addressed to me, “were lost in the post”. They say this is due to regional strikes – but I only receive a pile of post twice or three times a week at most times.
Occasionally I have to queue at my local post office. This may take from anything between fifteen and thirty minutes. At many times of the day and in any weather the queues continue outside on the street. And am I the only one who notices that the counter staff seems to work in slow motion ? And that they use every opportunity to disappear from their post, or to chat with their colleagues, or to lean over their colleagues shoulder (at another counter) to assist or to witness what is happening?
Of all the services I receive I find the Royal Mail to be the worst by far. If I had an affordable alternative, I would never use the Royal Mail again. Am I alone?
Sweden (in 1993) and New Zealand (in 1998) have successfully abolished their postal services’ legal monopoly. Civilisation did not come to an end. New companies entered the market. The universal service continued as before – as part of the legal requirements to operate (though it would probably have continued regardless of these rules as their customers would have demanded it). Quality was drastically improved; the postage price is very low compared to the UK.
Why can’t we have privatised house-to-house postal services here? We know how to do it: Ian Senior wrote two excellent papers about it for the Institute of Economic Affairs (2003 and 2004). Even Labour politicians seem to want it. It can’t be too difficult to explain to people that privatisation does not mean that the universal service will be thrown out of the window? Are we afraid of strikes? Many postal officers seem to be on a part time strike most of the time already.
Will Cameron bite the bullet?
