Killing Off The Royal Mail. Quietly Does It

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Do not underestimate the quiet man, one British politician once said, hinting that quiet people can cause a lot of hassle for everyone, if given the opportunity.

He was right, you know. Just look at Vladimir Putin: throughout his whole life he had been so quiet that no one could remember anything about him. Even when he was elected as President of Russia the Kremlin aides could not find people who could recall what Putin was about. In fact, he was so unremarkable that his colleagues in the KGB nicknamed him the Moth. And yet, during his eight years as Russian President, Mr Putin has managed to create such a mess in the country that it would now take several outstanding and very loud leaders to sort it out.

In Britain there is a quiet man at work at the moment. His name is Adam Crozier and he is the guy who has been presiding over the slow and painful demise off the Royal Mail. Mr Crozier, chief executive of the Royal Mail, reminds me somewhat of Putin: short, unimpressive, inarticulate, with a bad dress sense, a cold indifferent stare, surrounded by yes men. Just like Putin, he has been making some serious money and was himself under an impression that he did a great job, if you can call shutting down hundreds of post offices and cutting the number of postal deliveries a great job, of course.

The similarities with Putin do not end there, though. Just like the former Russian President, picked for the job not for his qualifications but because some people at the top liked him, the chief executive of the Royal Mail had been appointed by former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, not because he was a great administrator - which he was not, by the way - but because he was a loyal Labour supporter and was prepared to never ask his political masters for anything while delivering as much money as possible to the Treasury. He achieved that by ruthlessly closing down post offices across the country and downgrading the quality of services provided.

The most amazing thing is that, just like Putin, Crozier has always avoided any serious reproach. He was not to blame for anything, even though the Royal Mail was losing a lot of money. A corporation with a monopoly on postal deliveries has been constantly underperforming and cutting its services.

There should have been calls to replace Mr Crozier coming from all over the place. But no, not a sign of discontent registered itself until now, when the postal workers are threatening to go on strike and create total havoc in the run-up to Christmas. Suggestions that Crozier should be sacked have been emerging over the last couple of weeks. But it is doubtful that they would result in anything until Labour stays in power. And that means that a disrupted postal service will continue to operate well into next year.

By the way, one of the sure signs that a country is sliding into anarchy is the swift deterioration of its postal service. So it is never a good idea to appoint a quiet man to run it, even in the best of times. Especially as, just like Putin who had managed to run Russia into the ground, Crozier is quite capable of causing further damage to the Royal Mail.