This cynical RM and PO divorce will bring only misery

[TrueBlueTerrier]

This cynical Royal Mail and Post Office divorce will bring only misery

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... sfeed=true" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A trusted institution, part of our civic inheritance, is being forced into a price system that strips it of meaning and function

Even Margaret Thatcher hesitated when confronted with the privatisation of the Post Office. She did not think that turning the concept of "royal" into a commodity was something that would sit right with the British people. It is a sign of the times that with the diamond jubilee upon us, its managers do not consider that an impediment. Tomorrow, without any political discussion and through the administrative fiat of a business plan, the Post Office and Royal Mail will be severed from each other. It is a transformation of an important and meaningful public institution into a purely commercial entity, with the Royal Mail sent to the slaughterhouse and the Post Office functioning as an independent company.

It is simply not the case that with the rise of emails the Post Office is doomed, as the rise in parcel traffic arising from internet shopping has risen hugely. The truth is that profit in the Royal Mail for the six months to September 2011 rose from £22m to £67m within a £9bn turnover. The pension shortfall has been transferred to the state without a murmur on the grounds that it has contributed billions to the exchequer under the External Financing Limit.

There is a huge amount at stake here and it concerns the further depletion of any kind of local institutional ecology through which local markets and places can be renewed. Having failed to make a political argument for privatisation, a failure that links Thatcherism and New Labour, it is being pursued as a management restructuring exercise. The reason for the political failure is clear and there needs to be popular resistance to this move.

Capitalism is based on the severing of meaning and price and the upholding of price as the ultimate form of meaning. In such a model, beauty is in the eye of the shareholder. This has led to problems for all privatising governments as institutions that mean something to people, that are not exclusively commodities, are forced into the price system and lose their meaning and function to people. This government ran into trouble when it described Sherwood Forest as "an attractive investment opportunity for the timber industry". That is not the way the people of England viewed that piece of land, or any other forest. It is part of our civic inheritance. The government backed off when confronted by organised popular outrage. As they did with a sneaky attempt to do the same thing with allotments. They have learned their lessons and that is why the Post Office is being dealt with outside the political system and why it is necessary to make it a political issue.

It is one of the few remaining national institutions that remains trusted, used and popular with the people who view it as a public service. Our political and economic masters have long wanted it to be a business.

The Victorians embraced the tension and created an institution that was both, combining reliable service with an adaptability to changes in technology and taste. The 19th century postmaster generals Rowland Hill, "Beauty" Blackwood and Henry Fawcett combined a strengthening of the body politic with an exemplary national communications system. The Post Office is one of the very few local institutions that people trust and where people congregate. Twenty million customers go into one of the 11,500 post offices every week.

The rise in first class stamp prices to 60p is an indication of what is to come. This unwanted and surreptitious divorce will lead to all the complications of contractualising integrated arrangements, with Post Office staff having to rent desk space from the Royal Mail head office in Old Street, the charging of further rent for sorting rooms in rural post offices and the selling off of local post offices, understood as singular businesses rather than part of a wider national system of communication. All energy will go into privatisation rather than the improvement and renewal of the service. The formal improvement in profits, much like the rail privatisation, will lead to a substantive degradation of the service itself which will become more expensive and less accessible.

Local post offices and sorting offices will be downgraded and the meaning of the institution rendered void. The retail counter will be closed and will not be licensed to deal with driving licences or parcels over a certain weight. There will be a real erosion of the status and terms of employment for subpostmasters who have done more than anyone to preserve a sense of place and meaning in the commodification storm that has denuded out countryside of relationships and meaning.

This cynical divorce of what should never be sundered indicates that nothing has been learned by the government or our private corporations from the crash. Value is generated by relationships and trust, by institutions that innovate through local knowledge and expertise. There is a lack of vitality and energy in the regions of our country, a lack of local institutions that can generate renewal. The Big Society aspirations of the government are mocked by the market ideology that undermines place, local power and its necessary institutions. The Royal Mail should be renewed as a national and local institution as part of a wider civic and economic renewal that would see the rejuvenation of the BBC, hospitals, businesses and schools as local and national institutions that are built on vocation, virtue and value.

Talk to people, make some friends, make your voices heard and ensure that a thriving Post Office is part of the civic inheritance we pass on to our children and an aspect of our national life that is a blessing to us all.

[bensonhedge]

[CORTINA]

Sadly businesses are to make money.... selling off R M ...like BT, Gas and Electricity and whoever next in years to come....probably Motorways.....

Nothing is sacred anymore.... the past financial crisis has also changed things dramaticially on many issues.

All of a sudden in 4 years we have massive unpayable debt in the uk, high young unemployment, a generation that will never afford a home of their own... utility bills so high, high petrol costs and travel costs ...bus and railways ...many struggling with ability to pay on low wages..... if and when interest rates increase ..then another crisis looms as mortgage failures increase....

Still look on the bright side their are many more earning £100k now than 10 years ago.... some earning millions....so at least some people are happy...

Strange how you hear so little from the TUC and trade unions about anything these days...?...most increases are just excepted as a way of life today..... wether they are justified or not... we don`t know

[POSTMAN]

Kudos the Lindsay,she loves us...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lindsay-mackie" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[CORTINA]

Kudos the Lindsay,she loves us...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lindsay-mackie" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If things look so bad...you have to wonder how it ever gets the go ahead for change.... and everyone just excepts it all...

The word NO.. seems to be lost.. and the tuc and unions stay ...silent .. even with the massive collective power they have.... mmmmm

Still the sell off of R M will make a some people very rich.. so thats the main thing ...like all the other sell offs in the past.