- Target:
- The Prime Minister,10 Downing Street
- Region:
- United Kingdom
1. Royal Mail is a profitable business. Far better, then, to keep the Royal Mail public and plow the profits back into the service rather than allow them to be siphoned off to shareholders. The company made £440 million last year. The fact that the Tories still want to privatise what is an increasingly successful business smacks of public bad/private good fanaticism.
2. The cost-cutting that will likely follow a sell-off will place a huge question mark over the universal service. This isn’t left-wing propaganda as some on the right will undoubtedly claim. The Bow Group, the oldest conservative think-tank in Britain, has warned that privatisation could see the price of a stamp increase and Post Offices in rural areas close.
3. Privatisation doesn’t solve all problems. It ought to cause alarm that this point even has to be made, but such is the view of public services in the conservative mind.
Privatisation has been disastrous for our railways and has resulted in even higher subsidies for the rail operator than under public ownership. In 2010/11 Network Rail was subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of £3.96 billion. This compares with an average of £1.4billion over the 10 years leading up to privatisation.
4. Stamp prices could hit £1. The price regulation of stamps has been scrapped to increase the attractiveness of Royal Mail to investors. This brings with it the possibility that stamp prices could hit £1 shortly after privatisation. A private business exists to maximise profits for its shareholders, after all.
Again it’s worth looking at train fares. Since privatisation ten years of above-inflation rail price increases mean that some in the south-east of England now spend 15 per cent of their salary on rail travel.
5. The Royal Mail is part of the fabric of the nation. This probably sounds a bit wet, but institutions do matter. There are certain things which have come to be associated with Britain. The NHS, cricket, red phone boxes and yes, the Royal Mail.
It is hard to overstate the respect the British public has for posties. The sight of a postie on his or her rounds early (or not so early these days) in the morning is a fundamental part of British culture (yes it does exist), and not everything can simply be reduced to its monetary value.
We the undersigned call on the Government to leave Royal Mail alone. It is a well known fact that it is making a profit and will continue to do so as it is.
Privatisation would be a disaster for each and every one of us in the United Kingdom, no wonder people north of the border are pushing for their own government as they are sick and tired of people in Downing Street deciding what is best for them.
Margaret Thatcher failed to implement the privatisation of Royal Mail and why? Because we all stood together, lets do this now or like everything else in this country, we just sit there and let them take the disasterous steps and ruin an institution that has been part of Britain for as far back as I can remember and I am 61 years old.
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The Hands off our Royal Mail petition to The Prime Minister,10 Downing Street was written by veronica mccabe and is in the category Miscellaneous at GoPetition.