Post: Traumatic Stress

Peter Mandelson has a new name in our household: Postman Prat.

The justification for selling off 30% of Royal Mail is apprently that (coincidentally, surprise, surprise) the Pension Fund is in a parlous state and could well result in the whole business folding.

Who values the Pension Fund? - the City, based on the state of the economy. So it's bound to be looking a bit peeky at the moment, same as anyone else. It will come back, when shares come back.

Why are we looking at it today, then? Well, it just so happens that Mandelson is trying to force through the part-privatisation of Royal Mail, despite the fact that the Government seems hell-bent on nationalising everything else!

The rationale for the privatisation is a wonderfully circular argument. Royal Mail is in a mess, financially, and its pension fund has a huge deficit.

Who is responsible for it being in a mess financially? - governments of successive hues, who have starved it of investment for years, then saddled it with the half-assed cockanamie version of "competition" it currently labours under.

Who is responsible for the Pension Fund being in a mess? - Gordon Brown, who raided it for government revenue to spend on eye-catching New Labour initiatives.

Now, under the principles of "benign neglect", (see previous post) it's been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that apparently only drastic action can save it. Though if you valued the pension fund in another way, on a different day, the result might be different, too.

Mandelson's version of drastic action is selling off 30% of it to TNT (presumably there wasn't a passing Russian gas oligarch available at the time). Why in Christ's name TNT should be able to bring any more expertise than already exists, I don't know. Nor can anyone tell me.

Right. Listen Mandelson. Why should I sit here and take you privatising the Royal Mail, which should be owned and operated for the benefit of us all, especially when you are nationalising banks left right and centre? If my hard earned taxpayers' money is good enough to prop up the Roual Bank of Scotland, it's good enough to ensure we have an affordable, reliable, universal delivery obligation. Otherwise known as the Royal Mail.

Re-nationalise the Post Office. Restore the monopoly. And tell TNT to go jump in the canal.