Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
Selling of the post office
I challenge all political party's to now say ,
if the post office Is soled of by the conservatives
Labour or the libs will take this service back with out compensation.
That should frighten way all privet investors
Labour could have dun this with ,gas electricity water and the railways
Nobody would purchased these industry if They new they would have been taken back without compensation
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
No Keith - we have a system based on the rule of law. What you suggest would be theft, pure and simple.
What if your pension or ISA fund were to buy shares in Royal Mail as it well might? You would be the one to have your money stolen ultimately.
The simple fact is that there is no reason at all for Royal Mail to be government owned. To survive it has to face new challenges and a government owned entity will not be able to do that. It needs to be privatised for its own sake.
Its not as if the present set-up has been steadily improving service after all. Whoever is screwing up the current delivery rounds in Dover should be sacked for incompetence.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
If you don't want to lose your money don't invest .
simple as that
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Sheer lunacy. It is being sold simply so that the Coalition can be seen to be doing something.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
You can ridicule all you like you will not shut me up .
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Keith - fund managers, perhaps yours, will buy the shares. What is more they should be a good 'value' rather than 'growth' buy that will produce good dividends to feed income portfolios. They will be much favoured by pension funds and other income generating portfolios. As I said, if some backward and plainly idiotic government decided to break the law doing what only authoritarian dictatorships have done before then they will be steeling ultimately not from the pension, insurance and mutual funds but their members, largely vulnerable and elderly people.
Such a government would be held to account in international courts too and investors will be deterred from putting money into this country with such a irresponsible government in charge. The economy and jobs will also suffer.
Meanwhile to Royal Mail will carry on offering an inferior service, will get into the position of needing more and more taxpayer subsidy and will become an ever bigger public liability.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
The taxpayers own the post office
Lets have a referendum on the sale, and taking back the utility's
And the railways?
Is it legal to sell property that is owned by others ?
And don't forget the profitable bit of the post office where soled of by Labour
The party's full of barristers and accountant,
There just not very good a running a country ,living on a different planet ,and all that
SWWood- Location: Dover
- Registered: 30 May 2012
- Posts: 261
The main issue with the privatisation of Royal Mail (not the Post Office as previously stated) is that the postal market is already open to competition , and has been for a while. The post is no longer the public service it once was, it is a fiercely competitive business. It is sad that it has come to this, and I for one would prefer the postal monopoly to still be in place, but those days are long gone. In a competitive market, their is no need for a state owned Royal Mail any more.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
The UK postal service is known to be "fiercely competitive", but this 'fact' is little more than a slogan. The semblance of competitiveness has been long-engineered within Royal Mail. I suspect that the RM management bonus structure takes account of this.
Much that has already been privatised is now being run at a profit for the benefit of other State owned enterprises, just not British enterprises.
The privatisation of the RM, as with the others, is done solely to follow the ideological thrust of the Anglo-Saxon economic model, and as can be plainly seen in the comments above, does nothing more that make the population and the State beholden to bonus-hungry, profit at all and any cost, fund managers and other Vampire money shufflers.
No need to worry too much about the buy-back KeithB, a simple redirection of QE and all will be well.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
State monopolies do not work, not for the taxpayer or for the customer. Royal Mail has a declining business model and has to change to meet changing times. Trying to protect it serves no purpose.
State run 'businesses' are a liability, taxpayers do not own them at all, the government does and they are always a financial liability. A disaster in the 70's and before and would be again if anyone was daft enough to do what Keith would like to see.
True public ownership comes through privatisation whether you purchase some shares directly or your pension or ISA fund does - you can then benefit from the equity stake and dividends from a company being run properly on your behalf.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
Most of the uk, water gas and electricity is now owned by the German and French public
SWWood- Location: Dover
- Registered: 30 May 2012
- Posts: 261
Tom Austin wrote:The UK postal service is known to be "fiercely competitive", but this 'fact' is little more than a slogan. The semblance of competitiveness has been long-engineered within Royal Mail. I suspect that the RM management bonus structure takes account of this.
Much that has already been privatised is now being run at a profit for the benefit of other State owned enterprises, just not British enterprises.
You are simply wrong about this. Competition in the postal market is very real, and has done serious damage to Royal Mail's position. The profitable work is being skimmed off by rival firms, whilst a Royal Mail is left with the job of handling what remains. What's more, the rival firms, having run the mail they collect through their own machines, then dump it on Royal Mail to deliver, having taken a big chunk of the profits for each item. The hard (unprofitable) work of walking to every door in the country is left to the postmen of Royal Mail. And of course, these profits that are skimmed off are the very same profits that Royal Mail would be using to subsidise loss making operations like delivering to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, in order to support the Universal Service that they are (legally) obliged to provide. Royal Mail as we knew it was effectively killed off when the market was opened up. Privatisation is simply the logical final step in the process Labour started in the late 1990's and early 2000's.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Keith Bibby wrote:Most of the uk, water gas and electricity is now owned by the German and French public
And why is that?
I will tell you...
Blair sold the government's 'golden share' that was retained by Mrs T to prevent this.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
SWWood wrote: "Tom Austin" wrote:The UK postal service is known to be "fiercely competitive", but this 'fact' is little more than a slogan. The semblance of competitiveness has been long-engineered within Royal Mail. I suspect that the RM management bonus structure takes account of this.
Much that has already been privatised is now being run at a profit for the benefit of other State owned enterprises, just not British enterprises.
You are simply wrong about this. Competition in the postal market is very real, and has done serious damage to Royal Mail's position. The profitable work is being skimmed off by rival firms, whilst a Royal Mail is left with the job of handling what remains. What's more, the rival firms, having run the mail they collect through their own machines, then dump it on Royal Mail to deliver, having taken a big chunk of the profits for each item. The hard (unprofitable) work of walking to every door in the country is left to the postmen of Royal Mail. And of course, these profits that are skimmed off are the very same profits that Royal Mail would be using to subsidise loss making operations like delivering to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, in order to support the Universal Service that they are (legally) obliged to provide. Royal Mail as we knew it was effectively killed off when the market was opened up. Privatisation is simply the logical final step in the process Labour started in the late 1990's and early 2000's.
You fail to mention the other biggest problem for Royal mail - email.
You cannot benefit long term through protectionism, it can only be damaging.
We had many industries that should have been allowed to modernise and adapt in the 50's, 60's and 70's prevented from doing so through the state ownership model trying to protect jobs and suffering from backward looking trade unions.
If they had been left to compete as private companies, to modernise and do so without the malign influence of trade unions we might now still have many 'old' industries that have since been lost to the UK. Some of those companies would have been lost, yes - that is a part of a healthy competitive market, but others would have thrived.
Back to Royal Mail, it has not been run well enough and cannot be while it is in state ownership.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
forgetting the money side of things for a moment ask anyone that comes here from abroad to compare the service here to the on where they came from and they always ours is far superior in my opinion.
very rarely is anything lost and delivery times are normally adhered to.
SWWood- Location: Dover
- Registered: 30 May 2012
- Posts: 261
Keith Bibby wrote:Most of the uk, water gas and electricity is now owned by the German and French public
And much of your mail is handled by DHL (German) and TNT (Dutch).
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
SWW, So where is the competition? The 'service' is being sold-out from under RM, given away.
State Ownership was never the issue, Party Political ideological interference more like.
For far too long this inter-Party Gladiatorial combat has gone on. The reason why such a tantrum-tussle has continued is because when any blow is struck the weal appears upon the populace.
The damage from every Political failure leaves the majority of the population with the scars and the crippling effects, and leaves the Partys untouched.
Just in case this is brought to a halt, the public-ethos is to be discarded in a hurry. Soon there will be nothing whatsoever to Vote for. Parliament has heard the cry of Apathy from the public, and shall heed it for their own ends.
Is this what was meant by 'Decentralisation'? Not the devolving of power and influence - of 'ownership' - from the Centre to the wider community, but the hiving-off of all that we hold dear, of all that we may point to as an identifier of us as a Nation, to slick-tongued parasites, and their - for a fee - apologists?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Actually this is not really a party political issue - Labour, in government, did actually did see the sense of privatisation and prepared the way for it, being stopped by their Union paymasters.
Anything opposed by the Unions must be good.
Tom - your faith in nationalised monopolies is touching though naive and running against experience. Your hyperbole simply shows the paucity of your argument.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Says you Barry, but you have nothing to add, except, " Anything opposed by the Unions must be good."
Mind you, that statement does signal some support of the New Labour Party, for that too is no friend to the unions. This is one mistake I would not make.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
hang on a minute,when I first moved to I am my mail used to arrive between 0730 to 0930 latest,therefore if I had an appointment in the post say for1200 I would have made the appointment.but it now arrives between 1100 and 1300 hours my appointment missed.in my view its got worse over the last 12 to 18 months,the reason being the postie has to do the gateway flats before coming to aycliffe.good for the gateway flats bad for aycliffe,and before I forget they cant leave the office until 0900.