When you’re an emigrant, it’s nice to keep in touch with home.
Back in the 70s, when my uncles began our family migration to Canada, it was a lot tougher to do. An occasional letter. An astronomically expensive phone call. Now, the internet makes it easy, so of course I follow the British news.
So I was horrified to read about the UK Government’s plans for Royal Mail.
The gist, as I understand it from 3,500 miles away, is that it’s going to be floated on the stock exchange. That ends centuries of history and, importantly, shifts the focus of the entire organisation into a profit-making body.
Of course, it’s a process that’s been hinted at for more than 20 years. Successive governments have struggled with the issue of funding the Royal Mail and reports of its profits have generally made depressing reading.
Frankly, I’ve always thought the idea of profit checks on a public service was flawed. In its present form, it was never going to stand up to a business test. There’s no way that any private company would set up a service in such a way, with high-volume business in urban areas expected to support loss-making deliveries and collections in remote places. It would be business suicide.
The flip side is: if it didn’t exist, we would have to invent it. Even in the electronic age there will always be a need to move physical items around the country in an affordable way. The private sector isn’t going to replace Royal Mail. The whole issue is complex and difficult and painful.
But, sentimental old lefty that I am, I cannot accept the idea that a postal service must stand on its own two feet. Surely, sooner or later, the more minor aspects of it are going to need support. Whisper it: socialist principles have to seep in somewhere. The alternative is massive economic damage to rural areas and a reduced national service that will be of poorer quality. Kiss your Saturday post goodbye, for example. Where are your birthday cards? Nobody knows.
And that brings me to Canada.
I’m grateful to this country for welcoming me, so I’m careful about criticising it. But there’s no denying the fact that Canada Post isn’t very good.
They don’t deliver on Saturdays. Items in the mail seem to take forever to arrive. I can’t find a post office anywhere. In fact, they don’t really exist; instead, there are little outlets in retail stores across the country. They seem chronically understaffed. I ring the bell on the desk and no one comes.
I have to be reasonable about it. Canada Post simply cannot command the funding that Royal Mail can. Canada has a strong and positive – focus on entrepreneurship and I must admit I’m happy that its public sector isn’t bloated and creaking like the British one. Often, private companies offer a better service, although for a higher price. Also, there’s a benefit for retail stores, because online retail isn’t nearly as strong here. I don’t see the shuttered shops that used to upset me on Perth High Street.
But I’m deeply unhappy with the idea of taking Royal Mail, that magnificent, vital service, and carving it up for friends of the UK Government to take a bite. For so many years, Britain’s postal service has been central to its society. The postman’s arrival, the pillarboxes, the reliability of it all it’s not been perfect but, when you compare it with other countries, it’s been good. It deserves to be protected by government.
I left the UK, so I know it’s cheeky of me to say this. But I’m upset. The British Government has been doing some pretty right-wing things, and admittedly is facing tough choices, but this is a step too far.
You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.