RIP- THE ROYAL MAIL

When one occasionally seeks to learn what our esteemed councillors are up to, a good place to start is to access the council’s web-site and trawl through the ‘minutes’ of the various panels.

 

Upon reading of their innumerable antics, one often wonders whether any of them really understand just what is happening in the world outside their pseudo civic circle.

For instance: according to the ‘Minutes of the Full Council Meeting’ - of 9 July 2013 It was proposed by Councillor S. Quinn and seconded by Councillor Whitehead: That Tameside Council request that the Chief Executive write to the Government and all our local MPs to express this Council’s concern about the proposed sale of the Royal Mail, and propose the Government rethink their proposals for the future of the service.

Following consideration of the Motion it was: Resolved: Which means The Leader of the Council will now write the Government Minister; to Billy Hayes (The relevant Trade Union Leader) and our local Labour MPs, registering Tameside’s objection to the sale and conveying their full support for the “Save Our Royal Mail” campaign.

Irrespective of the fact that Kieran Quinn was previously employed by The Royal Mail and is still a big-wig in the Trade Union movement and despite the fact that during the reign of the last Labour Government, they too tried unsuccessfully tried to sell-off The Royal Mail. (In fact, all they did was manage to close 2,500 of its 14,000 branches in an attempt to curb losses of at least £4million a week and cut the network's annual subsidy of £150million a year to £110million) – (to which incidentally, Andrew Gwynne MP - husband of Cllr Alison Gwynne, voted with the Labour Government to close those 2500 Post Offices, although now, surprise,surprise he opposes the sell-off!) 

Despite all the rhetoric, this currant debacle is a total waste of time and is a pure unadulterated smokescreen to blind voters, because our so-called politicians, of all colours, simply have no choice, and they know it!

This latest quest to privatise the Post Office does not come from the ‘wicked Tories’, as Tameside councillors would have us believe. If they’re honest they should be pinning the blame on the EU Directive 97/67/EC "Privatisation of Postal Services, to which they alone signed us up to, and in which it states that an EU-wide postal service would be established.

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/post/legislation/index_en.htm

And who opened this political can of worms? - Well, in 2001, the Labour Government registered Royal Mail as a public limited company, to which the Government holds all the shares; (probably to avoid the EU's right to control the use of subsidies.) Then, in order to overcome the loss of Royal Mail's profits, the Government subsidised Royal Mail without EU permission, with the equivalent of €2.5 billion, in order to introduce improved mechanical sorting equipment into the system. 

At this point, some of Royal Mail's competitors complained to the European Commission which started an enquiry. In response the Government ordered a review of the postal services sector. The Review Panel submitted its report to Parliament last December. It describes Royal Mail as 'inefficient' but fails to acknowledge that it is the EU which prevents the introduction of modern systems. Instead the report suggests amalgamating Royal Mail with one or more private sector companies.

The reality now, is that unlike Norway, which vetoed the EU’s 3rd Postal Directive (2008/6/EC) the UK cannot opt out of the Directive.  So no matter how many strikes there are by postal workers, how much disruption is experienced by households and businesses, or even how many letters Kieran and Susan Quinn write to the Prime Minister, his trade Union Leader or send up the chimney to Father Christmas, the UK is stuck with having to obey the EU’s demands. 

The Royal Mail will be privatised because the EU has told the UK to do it!

…But of course, our scheming shower of councillors already know that, but they’re not going to miss the opportunity of trying to blame the someone else, are they?