Three p or not Three p

The Daily Mail has an exclusive about the scandalous 3p increase in the price of stamps that Royal Mail are planning.

Royal Mail is planning shock increases in the cost of postage, with first class stamps rising by 3p, amid claims it is facing financial disaster.
The controversial proposals are designed to rake in more than £100million from customers in a year.
The record increases have been sanctioned by the industry regulator Postcomm as an urgent measure to fill an enormous black hole in Royal Mail's finances.

How far do you think you can get on 3p? How far do you think you could get on 25p and how much further would you get with the additional 3p? Not very, I suspect. Not unless you're on one of those Army challenges where you rely on your MOD90 and the good will of Joe Public to do an amusing number of things like kiss blondes and go on the radio.

But the beauty of Royal Mail is that you can post a letter in Upper Chiddingfold and have it arrive in John O'Groats for the same price as someone sending a letter down the road. It's the universal delivery which counters the inevitable market failures which rural deliveries bring about. So what's 3p on the cost of sending a birthday card to the other end of the country? Not a lot, if it's actually delivered on time.

As I've written before, there are rules governing the subsidising of POL and Royal Mail which we have the EU to thank but what, I ask myself, do the Communication Workers Union think they're up to?

Two weeks ago the Office of National Statistics published the latest figures on the employment rate which showed that it had dropped to 72.5%.

The inactivity rate for people of working age was 21.1 per cent for the three months to July 2009, up 0.2 both over the previous quarter and over the year. The number of economically inactive people of working age rose by 97,000 over the quarter and by 125,000 over the year to reach 7.99 million, the highest figure since comparable records began in 1971.

It seriously fucks me off that after all the work Thatcher did trying to make Britain a business friendly country; her supply side reforms and strong action over the unions, we've gone back to a situation where a group of people who have themselves partially to blame over the cost of the postal service, think that they should not face any reforms to a business which clearly needs reforming. And how to they demonstrate that they are decent people who should be supported? By not doing any fucking work.

There are a lot of people out there looking for work so I say tell those who are striking to fuck off and give their jobs to people who actually want to earn a living and not muck up the postal service in this country with their selfish behaviour.

I have important shit to send, you know. And I'm going to be less inclined to send it in paper format if I don't know the bugger when it's actually going to arrive.