Cameron the Heathite?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

yet more weekness by Gordon that will leave another mess for the next governement

The Post will prob be in intensive care after the next election
and as a result will be unable to be privatised and soak up more
public monies.

Its high time the royal mail is either sold off or privatized .
Nothing but high handed demands and holding the country to ransom
Same old tactics Its time the public had their say in times of economic problems as the country is struggling to come out of recession The small trader has been crippled once a gain by an irresponsible rabble
Sell out to independant operators of iam sure will make a better job.
With less hassel.

All I ever get is bills in the post, so they can stay on strike as long as they like. 8-)

1. John_from_Hendon

It's a shame you have no insights to give us on the Post Office, the subject of this blog. Your post is just a desperate effort to perpetute the failed smear of the Conservatives regarding the other members of the Euro-grouping. Smear away if you like - it is getting zero traction with the public, who, increasingly, these days, know when they are being lied to.

Every problem with the Post Office can be traced back to the details of the disasterous part-privatisation - (c) Gordon Brown and Patricia Hewitt.

At its heart, the philosphy of the exercise was to leak as much cash as possible out of the Post Office and back to the Treasury. Clearly the dividend arrangements are part of this, but the most pernicious are the "privatisation loans". These are virtual loans - when the corporate structure of the Post Office was constructed, it was simply assumed to owe money (billions, indeed) to the Treasury, and therefore to be obliged to pay interest. These interest payments were then, and remain now, among the biggest fixed costs that the Post Office has. Whenever you hear of the Post Office making a loss, the first thing to remember is that the loss is calculated after the Treasury has taken its massive cut of the Post Office turnover.

I sincerely hope that, whatever else they do to the Post Office, the first thing the Conservatives do is unravel the structure of the part-privatisation and put it onto a fair basis. I have to admit, I am lukewarm about an ultimate full privatisation. The Post Office remains a strategic infrastructural asset; it also has a role in the continued viability of rural communities which cannot, in reasonable imagination, be maintained in a future, purely commercial, business model.

I believe there are plausible arguments for either a state-owned national postal distribution organisation, or one with significant private ownership.

Simple fact is that the present owners (UK state - on "our" behalf) have made a complete hash of running the Royal Mail Group.

Years ago, a major scheme had been initiated to pump activities through the Post Office network. When Blair decided to scrap it, he dumped hundreds of millions of cost onto the Royal Mail.

Over the years, various activities have been stripped away from post offices and their are tight estrictions on the commercial services they can offer.

The Germans allowed their (expensive, but profitable) postal group to invest massively in new equipment and processes. In the UK, governments kept taking as much as they could as "dividends", effectively stranging the investment stream. (And frankly, also allowing the pension fund to get completely out of control and under-funded.)

IF, repeat IF, a stake in Roal Mail were sold to a private organisation, the only place the money received (or a very large chunk of it) could legitimately go would be into the pension pool. So where's the investment for upgrades coming from?

Royal Mail is an outdated business model, populated by people all still stuck in that old nationalised industry mentality, throwing tantrums.

If they weren't striking now for whatever they're striking about they'd be striking about something else - temps getting overtime, lack of sugar in the coffee machine, whatever.

What saddens me is that there will still be a small percentage of the workforce whom are dedicated, hard-working, and enthusiastic, who will doubtless get swept up in all this and suffer as a result.

Privatisation is the only way to go for them really, along with ridding themselves of all the dead wood who've been holding them back for this long.

Let's privatise the Post Office !

After all it has improved the rail network so much, hasn't it ?

It always seemed to me that the Royal Mail was a perfect vehicle to become a 'partnership' ala The John Lewis Partnership, given its history and public service ethos.

Indeed, I have heard that the 'policymakers' have also seriously considered this option but we never hear why nothing came of it.

Ted Heath was a politician who having witnessed first-hand the carnage of WWII, decided 'we' were going to be in Europe, even if that meant disguising the political aspects of the project, which have gradually been revealed.

For the short-term benefit i.e. getting us in Europe, Heath traded long-term English voter suspicion about politicians real motives.

Misguided political arrogance from Ted Heath but he certainly has plenty of company amongst the current crop of 'British' politicians.

At last a conservative policy, We'll privatise the post office, very revealing.

Further to FOM's 6 and djl's 7

It is, indeed, correct to point out the way in which some areas of business have been more-or-less forcibly taken away from the Post Office. A classic is the TV License. That is another decision I hope the Conservatives will reverse - indeed I would go further. Not being a great enthusiast for the existing TV Licensing organisation, it seems to me to be quite credible not merely to bring back the opportunity to buy your license over the counter in a Post Office, but, indeed, to turn over the whole admistration of these licenses to the Post Office.

One of the most significant aspects of the poor quality of strategic thinking in the Post Office is the poor quality of the top layer of management. Few have any kind of a record elsewhere, and even those who do seem to regard their job with the Post Office as a final stepping-stone to retirement. The principal qualification to be on the board seems to be a willingness to keep quiet about the consequences of the mess that was created by Brown and Hewitt in the original part-privatisation and the ongoing interference by the government in the running of the organisation.

First of all many of us questioned Mandelson's decision to announce the privatisation of Royal Mail at the beginning of a recession. He must have known full well that there could not have been a worse time.

Not only taking on the postal workers but his own party. He must have known it was doomed to fail so his motives must be under question.

The result is another almighty mess with strikes threatening the very survival of the Post Office as we know it and random privitisation by default.

As far as Cameron is concerned it will probably be too late to even pick up the pieces as from now on there is bound to be a free for all from private carriers or vultures to pick up the most lucrative bits.

Not even Margaret Thatcher tried to privatise the post office so how could a labour government assume it could take on the unions unless it had already given up and intended to pass the whole sad caboodle over to the next government.

The government must tell the Post office's management to deal with the problem. That's what they are paid vast salaries for. If necessary a total change of staff might be required, and considering there are 6 million people not working in Britain, there will be no shortage of applicants. If you go on strike you are in breach of contract and can be sacked without any redundency pay, so lets see some action on behalf of the public by the Post Office management. We, after all are paying their wages and if they don't provide a service then they too should be sacked.The days of Trade Union blackmail are long gone and if the post office workers put their jobs at risk then that is their problem.

Re my 5 and 11

It would probably help also if the Post Office were allowed to charge a more realistic price, both for the letters and packages that it handles end-to-end and for the "last mile" service it performs for commercial carriers.

The postal service is and has to be a public service - it is not an industry nor can it be run like TNT. If post services were run on commercial basis our fellow brits at the extemities would get a weekly delivery at a cost of £10 and the rest of us would have to figure our way round 20 different charging tariffs frequently changing. It is bad enough with the current creeping commercialisation from the management and government. As the use of the service is in decline natural wastage can facilitate the downsizing that is inevitable as boomers retire.

In Stevenage we still have the second post - it was the first post they abolished!

Has David Cameron ever explained what he's going to do about PFI?

Poor Nick, always has to get his "team Cameron" in and the suggestion that any solution means glory for hero Brown ! Sad

This blog by Nick raises two main points, both of which require an answer.

Firstly, the whole Royal Mail Privatisation bit. One thing that will definately disappear if the Royal Mail is privatised, is the concept that you can send a letter five yards or 500 miles for the same cost. No private company will take on such an obligation, because it is simply not profitable to do so. The idea that you could open up all areas and mail streams of Royal Mail's business to full competition, but only enforce the Universal Tariff restrictions on one company is anti-competitive, restricts trade, and under the European Law is probably illegal. The fact is that despite Mandleson's meddling, and despite the entrenched views (both public and private) of the management and the unions, the Royal Mail HAS to be treated in a different manner to just about any other company or service industry. If you try and impose ill thought-out measures on them simply because "it worked for ABC Ltd", then your efforts will fail and you end up with the situation we have right now.

OK - Second point. Nick, when are you going to write a blog that is fair and balanced towards all parties? Even when you have a major industrial dispute, and a meddling unelected wannabe PM in Mandelson, you STILL can't resist writing it as an anti-tory jibe.

You talk about the numerous failed attempts by His Mandyness to privatise the Royal Mail, and how nobody - not even those in his own party - would back the plans. Yet they still try to push them through in disregard for the facts and the overwhelming swell of opinion. Cameron is simply bringing all this into the public arena for debate, and you write an article that belittles him for doing so?

Why?

Cameron will need a mandate to privatise the Royal Mail. It seems unlikely, despite his posturing, that he will be put this in the Tory election manifesto. There is likely to be millions who would not vote Tory if they did make such a committment.

What he could do, is to make a committment to make it illegal for public services to strike. This means not only Royal Mail, but Tube and Rail services as well. These unions are controlled by old style militants who just like to abuse the power they have over a weak and ineffective government.

The main problem Gordon Brown has, is that many Labour MPs are sponsored by the Trade Unions and will never ever dare to oppose them.

16 Poprischin

"Has David Cameron ever explained what he's going to do about PFI?"

In terms of new PFI deals, the Conservatives have said there won't be any.

In terms of existing deals, most of them have long contracts that effectively tie the hands of a future government. I saw an article in the FT that anticipated that a future government would become much more tight than the present one over breaches of contract by the PFI partner. I expect this is the only mechanism available to terminate the contracts.

#11 jrperry

One of the most significant aspects of the poor quality of strategic thinking in the Post Office is the poor quality of the top layer of management.

===============================

Agreed, I just wish this was a phenomenon that wasn't so widespread in our public sector.

The PO requires radical reform, only delivering ebay purchases has kept it going this long.
Where ministers feared to tread in 1992, they will all boldly go in this... the internet age. Which bless it, has freed the customer from endless queues and grumpy counter staff.

How widespread is this strike?

I just received post today so Amersham is working. On a HYS comment a blogger from Haywards Heath had mail today. It will be interesting to see how the media portray this. I do not know much about the Post Office, but on issues reported the grievances by the workers tend to be in the big cities and rural areas the postie is a happier camper?

The financial set up described by JRPERRY above is scarcely believable. No wonder they have such a huge pension deficit. Dick Turpin the highway robber is not in the same league as HM Treasury. Daylight robbery indeed!

The royal mail shouldn't be privatised but it should become a not for profit company. Seperated from the government so that militants cant hold the government to ransom.

There is absolutely no doubt that the man or woman of who run the gauntlet of your dog When passing in your garden to deliver your mail do a wonderful job this is not under dispute the very existence of a grocer come pension payer in rural communities a must ,
Its the main headquarters London where the problem lies the sorters the big union strong holds is of the very core nature of most problems.
Cut this major thorn out and redistribute into the hands of a private company or companies keeping hold of your post man or woman but get modernized in the process.
And remember what nulabour told you things can only get better ?

Those who praise the private delivery companies forget that the Royal Mail has a legal obligation to deliver anywhere and everywhere. A private company can always say "sorry, we don't deliver there". This dispute is doubtless in part caused by union narrow-mindedness and disingenuousness - but in fairness, I've no doubt that the insensitive, crude, profit-driven management style of the Royal Mail and its bosses hasn't helped one bit either. The government should engineer a situation where both sides should be forced to go to ACAS and be obliged to observe a binding agreement. Caledonian Comment

The only issue I see is whether or not there will be a Royal mail left to privatise after Brown has managed to ignore everything, and let things slide so effectively

As always, Nick, an unusual approach to covering the story. Labour ARE in government and supposedley in charge of the country. The Conservatives are NOT in Government.

Yet you choose to have a blog on what the Conservatives MIGHT do rather than what Labour ARE doing.

Nick - I love it that you still hold the candle for a possibility of Gordon Brown winning the next election. He won't. He won't even be standing - the seeds of his 'retiring through ill-health' have been planted already and Mandy has that planned out.
What is emerging is yet again Mandys prediliction for playing with this country and its assets for his own purpose - ultimately delivering Blair with his European Presidency and the ill gotten gains they will both share. The rhetoric from both parties and the double dealing that is now being uncovered is gooey from the oily touch placed upon it by Mandelson.
What is best for all parties in moving forward, modernising and diversifying has become unclear because of Mandys meddling. The next government - of whichever hue - will need to restore the damage to the democratic process so that unelected, unwanted, unaccountable and unscrupulous self-serving career politicians never get to enjoy this level of power again. As Kinnock once said "I want an election, and I want it now!"

The last sentence of this blogs starts "If Gordon Brown wins this dispute...." Whatever happens, he will not win it because he hasn't taken a position. He would just like the problem to go away and politely asks for management and unions to "get round the table." No leadership.

Nick always tries to see how a situation may fall to the advantage of Gordon Brown but there is nothing here which will benefit him. He probably won't lose too much either because he is finished.

It is perfectly obvious to all who is going to lose though - the Post Office and its employees.

I think a prolonged strike will kill off a lot of the good will that the public has towards the Post Office and it would make it a lot easier for PM Cameron to push through privatization. The Post Office is a joke, we regularly get letters for houses with a similar address but 30 miles away because the posties can't be bothered to read past the first 2 lines of the address!

However, if Cameron is looking for lessons to learn from history I hope he doesn't make the mistake that the Thatcher government did after the miner's strike. They were out for revenge and brought in the rigged privatized electricity market that made the mass pit closures of 1992 inevitable. This decimated mining communities the length of Britain and today even Norman Tebbit admits that they should have secured a future for the most productive pits and prevented some of the strongest and proudest communities in Britain from being abandoned to crime and drugs!

What Cameron should do is be magnamimous and go for the John Lewis model of private ownership that would give the posties an incentive to ensure that the company is successful. He should also fire Royal Mail's incompetent management team and bring in people from outside the company so that there will be a clean slate for everyone.

#grandy and john from hendon

Still you persist with this "Tories have no policies" line. Did you ever stop to think how it makes you look, when there have been any number of policy announcments over the past year, and every single time one of you lot pops up to say "The tories have no policies", "at last, the first policy from the tories, how revealing" or any other combination of those sentiments.

Try the conservative party website. Try listening / reading again what was announced at the conference. Try anything other than simply repeating what Gordon says without filtering it through your own brain first.

Oh, and before you witter on about inheritance tax, remember that the labour party has decided to increase the thresholds and allow transferability, giving roughly the same overall threshold as the tory policy would.

By all means disagree with what they would do, but claiming they have no policies is like standing in the middle of a forest and claiming there are no trees.

Why is everyone baulking at privatising the Post Office. It is EU Law that we privatise it wether Brown Mandy or Cam like it or not, so what Cuddly Ken has said is merely legal reality. When the next government come in they will privatise the Post Office, even if by some strange quirk of fate or Afghan/Zim style vote rigging it is a Labour formed Brown led coalition.

As for taking on the CWU, they are now in thier death throes just like the NUM were in the early eighties. they can have one last Hurrah but they will soon enough have no business to be a union for.

I never cease to wonder at how blind our species can be to what is so obvious if we only look.

This guy will be joining the Tories after the GE. I feel sure he will be more than capable of privatising the RM. After all he has got the experience and form!

Personally, I cant see Cameron having the backbone to do it, not on current form. He cant even reduce Gordon to a whimpering heap at PMQ's, he's missed more open goals than Andy Cole in an England shirt... no, I dont think he's got the mettle.

Between them, the unions and the management will continue to degrade both the organisation and the service to the point where it implodes or just ends up being another monumental drain on public money and delivering next to naff all value in return.

In the meantime, private contractors/couriers will continue to eat away at the revenue streams damaged or lost as a result of the declining standards and strikes. Its already on life support. All its waiting for is for someone to come and trip over the mains lead and pull it out. Its unlikely to be Gordon and I can see Cameron very carefully tiptoe-ing around it as well.

Bit like the state pension... because the reforms and modernisations and bad tasting medicine will take longer than one parliament to adminster, no government is going to do it.

And in ten years time, when it falls flat on its back and we're all left looking at each other wondering what happened, it'll become obvious.

The chance was there to grasp the nettle and bang heads and... nobody did anything.

24 dhw

Well, thank you for a wholly new experience - agreeing with you!

The only thing I can add is that the Post Office effectively was a not-for-profit arms-length company until Brown and Hewitt got their sticky paws on it.

A good point here Nick, even Thatcher shied away from taking on the postal workers. But I would suggest there's a political dimention to this dispute that you've missed.

The posties are being used as election pawns and 'Maggie' Mandy is the root cause of the problem. No wonder Tories are milking it for all its worth.

Despite the Mandy spin, public sympathy is certainly not with the fat cat Mail bosses.

The dispute could be settled if only dithering Brown would get off the fence and bang a few heads together, starting with Mandelson and Crozier and tell this couple who are clearly in cahoots to call off the relentless attacks.

After all it's still a publicly-owned company and Mandy has cabinet responsibility doesn't he?

https://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/maggie-mandys-last-post.html

It's pointless and irrelevant to draw comparisons with the situations that existed years ago in the past. There are now several significant competitive alternative providers for some the key services and a continuing increase in the use of e-mail including the routine exchange of business documents in electronic form. It's also apparent that none of the main political parties want to return to the days of politically motivated union leaders attempting to dictate Goverment policy by leading their membership into actions designed to the create widest possible disruptive impact. I believe that by far the majority of postal workers are hard working and thoroughly responsible people therefore I feel extremely sorry that these strike actions will only accelerate the decline of the services and the associated jobs that they provide. This situation of course does not represent a personal risk to the jobs of the associated and extremely well rewarded union leaders

Is this really your major take on today's Postal strike, Nick?

After some improvement in recent months,it seems you are back to anti Tory propaganda at the expense of measured political thought.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall when your superiors check the latest opinions polls (that will be the ones they broadcast so sparingly!!)

It's not working, Auntie.

Meanwhile,your paymasters deserve a public service broadcaster that is constantly tripping over itself in an unending quest for impartiality.

Perhaps the post office won't be the only organisation that DC decides to privatise following his landslide victory next year!

US 'plans bail-out firm pay cut'

Firms in the US which received billions of dollars of government aid in the financial crisis are to be told to cut the pay of top executives.

The seven companies that received the most aid from the US Treasury will have to reduce the basic salaries of their 25 best-paid employees by up to 90%.

I wonder if Duff will copy this in the UK. After all he has constantly ranted on about global solidarity in dealing with bank excesses!

10. At 2:00pm on 22 Oct 2009, grandantidote wrote:
At last a conservative policy, We'll privatise the post office, very revealing.

===

Just like Labour's policy, then!

#5,11,14 jrperry

I thoroughly agree.

I have to say that it's just another example of New Labour's love affair with big business and the Friedman approach to economics. They seem to think that giving away our national infrastructure on appalling terms is going to benefit the taxpayer and the employees.

I think postal workers would have been crazy not to take industrial action. In recent months, the stubborn royal mail management has accelerated attempts to impose job cuts and office closures, longer shifts and increases in the working week, heavier workloads, longer and faster delivery rounds, more casual and part-time working and effective cuts in pay – while reports of rampant bullying, harassment and sackings on paper-thin pretexts multiply.

Pension entitlements have been hit and wage rates frozen, at a time when the company posted profits of $321m and the chief executive Adam Crozier, the private sector boss recruited to take the RM forward, pocketed £3m and £1.2m in pay and bonuses in successive years, compared with an £18,000 salary for the average postal worker. Any organised workforce faced with such attacks on its basic conditions of work would be bound to resist them.

The union have repeatedly offered to go to ACAS without preconditions and Royal Mail management have refused and taken the inflamatory measure of employing 30,000 agency staff - they seem to be Polish in my area and haven't really got a clue what to do with the post.

Anyway, how has the taxpayer/consumer benefited from privatisation.... rocketing energy prices and poor service, appalling train services accompanied by unrealistic prices, internet download speeds of a developing nation and poor service, rocketing water prices with chronic underinvestment and poor service, consortiums taking over tube maintenance only to go bust and require massive bailouts with the consortium businesses continuing to receive government business. I could go on but privatisation has been a disaster.

Relating this to the subject of the blog, will the Conservatives be any better? At the moment, they sound very much the same.

Its Ok Nick, your cheque's in the post.

#40 Roll_On_2010

Trouble is that this is the US acting on its own outside of the G20, main street was not happy.

Osborne has said that he will only act as part of the G20 too.

Looks like all those Americans working for banks in the City and Canary Wharf are heaving a sigh of relief.... they can rest assured that British politicians will always be on their side.

The side thing about the US story is that Goldmans and JP Morgan have already paid back their government money so they're free to pay as much as they like and they're still too big to fall.

We're actually in a worse position than we were - banks can take even more risk now because they'll always be underwritten by the taxpayer.

the pm is leaving the door open for any fool to step in and make an even greater mess.
would you vote for a party that wants to privatize the royal mail, i know i wouldnt.
the last time this country was in such a mess it was a labour government holding the reins.
from what has been said i personally dont think any single party has a clue how to solve the problem but a unified government with the aim of reviving this country may be the best way forward.

The core problem for RM, is that whilst other EU countries have invested in their mail services to get the best possible price for when they liberalize their mail, Labour have done the opposite and liberalized mail with an unseemly haste.

It's not just Labour though, the Tories had a history of effectively leaving something due to be privatized to rot in the hope that, when bought, the new owners would fix things - rail for example.

The CWU certainly don't help, the incredibly well paid dinosaurs in charge have resisted modernization for years, and frequently demanded ludicrous working conditions - a list of 2007 demands were comical.

Between them, the CWU, the government and RM's bosses have pretty much managed to sign its death warrant. The CWU will find itself without posties, the posties will find themselves without jobs. The only winners will be the bosses, both of the CWU and RM. Billy Hayes will still be earning more than an MP, and the RM bosses will move onto other well paid roles.

was it not chancellor Brown whom rape the PO of it protfit to spend spend spend, that has partly got the PO into this position ?

@ lordBeddGelert, post #8;

"Let's privatise the Post Office !

After all it has improved the rail network so much, hasn't it ?"

A fair point. Except that a large part of the reason that Rail Privatisation was such a dismal failure lies in the fact that there is, generally speaking, no effective competition to the rail companies. From my station, for instance, there is only one operator. If I'm not happy with their service, I can't simply switch to a better provider; there isn't one. Using the bus simply isn't practical - it would take longer to get to work and back than I'd actually spend at the office! I have to keep using the service, no matter how bad it gets, or else I can't earn my living. And a lot of people are in the same situation.

This - coupled with the utter stupidity of the Conservative government at the time who signed away the public service without setting any realistic standard by which the railways had to be run in order for the companies to keep their licences - is the reason that so many of the ToC's were able to rip off the public for so long, providing a worse and worse service for more and more money.

The situation is a little different with Royal Mail. They're no longer the sole provider of the service they offer, so they don't have the same option to effectively blackmail the government with threats of "you must hand us more taxpayers money or the system will collapse around our ears and the economy will be ruined!" They don't get to run the service into the ground whilst they leech every last penny out of it that they can get, safe in the knowledge that their customers have no other choice but to keep paying.

So even if this current government - or even a future Tory one - is stupid enough to believe that if they put a private interest in charge of a public service they'll do something other than make money any way they can (including lowering service levels and cutting staff, if necessary), the public will simply switch to a better-run provider.

Another political ball being kicked around while the bankers escape. Certainly needs to be addressed and reductions may be in order. Old habits die hard. Not the solution to the financial crisis, unemployment or other major worries. Tell me, how did these two leaders vote or statements made when issues related to banking pratices of that time were brought to their attention, say around 2005? That would provide a better assessment of the two. My guess is that their positions were very much alike.

#19 rockBigPhil

Not sure if including Manifesto pledges and a mandate are any use.

NuLabour 2005 Manifesto

To the benefit of business and household consumers we are liberalising the postal services market, while protecting the universal service at a uniform tariff.

As we said in our policy document Britain is Working, we have given the Royal Mail greater commercial freedom and have no plans to privatise it. Our ambition is to see a publicly owned Royal Mail fully restored to good health, providing customers with an excellent service and its employees with rewarding employment.

We will review the impact on the Royal Mail of market liberalisation, which is being progressively introduced under the Postal Services Act 2000 and which allows alternative carriers to the Royal Mail to offer postal services.


Manifesto pledges mean zip as far as NuLabour are concerned.

Point not yet mentioned (certainly not by Nick).... Alan Johnson, Home Secretary and New Labour blue-eyed boy, former postman, former Union activist, former General Secretary of the same CWU (or UCW as it was then called - new name, new focus is apparently the byline for all troubled organisations, like New Labour). Has he anything to say on this matter? Is there any possibility that instead of bringing Mandy in with his heavy-handed approach and his 'privatise or be damned' views, he could get Johnson to become involved? Someone wo would actually know what the issues are?

Of course, we know that Gordon won't do that for fear of Johnson being branded as New Labour's General Sir Richard Dannatt. But in my eyes it would be the right thing to do. Actually, it being the right thing to do would be yet another reason why Gordy won't do it.

Assuming the Tories, by default, are in power after the next General Election, then you might just see a 'John Lewis Partnership' type of business arrangement being put in place for the Royal Mail.

Which would be consistent with a new approach - the so-called 'Red Tory' idea (yes, I know it sounds like a contradiction in terms) that one of their gurus - Phillip Blond - has come up with.

Historically, working people at the lower end of the ladder have often been badly served by Labour, who have tended to utilise a 'nanny State knows best' approach.

Blonds' idea's are essentially to let these workers have a lot more control over their working lives (how kind) and that would be typified by for example, the partnership business model.

I am merely stating this as an interested observer, we all know how Tony Blair completely and utterly squandered the groundswell of goodwill that greeted his Parties arrival in power and the Tories probably won't even have that, so we'll just have to see how it pans out.

Nevertheless, I think that Blonds ideas for improving the lot of those at the lower end have a lot of merit, especially if some joined-up thinking is done with respect to Ian Duncan Smiths work on social inclusion.

PS. I am not a Tory but think reasonable ideas should be aired wheresoever they orginate from - no political dogma here - unlike that sad macho bear-pit (HoC) that calls itself a mature Parliament.

"excellentcatblogger wrote:
How widespread is this strike?

I just received post today so Amersham is working. On a HYS comment a blogger from Haywards Heath had mail today. It will be interesting to see how the media portray this. I do not know much about the Post Office, but on issues reported the grievances by the workers tend to be in the big cities and rural areas the postie is a happier camper?"

I believe that the strike is in two parts - today no sorting will be done and tomorrow there will be no deliveries.

So you might get post today but you shouldn't get any tomorrow. This apparently causes two days of disruption but the strikers only lose one days wages.

32 Grath
#By all means disagree with what they would do, but claiming they have no policies is like standing in the middle of a forest and claiming there are no trees.

Only to you and your Tory friends.

#Oh, and before you witter on about inheritance tax, remember that the labour party has decided to increase the thresholds and allow transferability, giving roughly the same overall threshold as the tory policy would.

No comparison my friend.

41 Yellowbelly

#Just like Labour's policy, then!

Any party in power has dozens of policies by necessity,as have the Labour party, whether you like them or not is up to you.
The problem is that should the tories get into power, on their present form they will have very few and none as yet to be of any use to the working classes.

@ jrperry, post #36;

"The only thing I can add is that the Post Office effectively was a not-for-profit arms-length company until Brown and Hewitt got their sticky paws on it..."

The more I read of your postings, the more I'm struck by the sneaking suspicion that it's probably a waste of time trying to penetrate your cranium with the message that, actually, not everything that goes wrong, anywhere, is the fault of the Labour Government; nonetheless, I got half an hour to kill, so I'll try.

Probably the first instance of Privatisation within the Royal Mail was when the telecommunications division was split off into a new company called British Telecom. This was happened at the start of the 80's, and by the mid-80's, British Telecom had been privatised.

Tell me, JR... who was the government at that time? Were Brown and Hewitt in it?

In 1989, the parts of the Royal Mail responsible for equipment maintenance and facilities management were split off into another new company, called RoMeC. This was part-privatised, with Royal Mail holding the majority share, but private shareholders owning very nearly half of the company.

Brown and Hewitt were in power by 1989, then, right? No...? Well, let's move on then.

At the very start of the 90's, the Royal Mail's banking division - Girobank - was sold off to the Alliance & Leicester. And finally - also at the very start of the 90's - the parcel delivery service was split up and sold off, becoming the company we now know as "Parcelforce". This DID remain a sub-division of Royal Mail - but no thanks to the effort of the government at the time, who did their best to force through a privatisation but were defeated in the Commons (I believe a fair number of their own backbenchers rebelled). In fact, this government was at the time considering privatising the ENTIRE Royal Mail.

Again - which government was this, Mr Perry? (Here's a hint - New Labour didn't get into power until the END of the 90's, not the beginning).

Since that point, there hasn't been any real privatisation of Royal Mail assets - which also belies your comments in post #5, where you claim that all the Royal Mail's problems can be traced back to Brown and Hewitt.

Mate, seriously - I know you can't stand Brown or New Labour. I can't either. But your continual attempts to paint them as being responsible for absolutely everything that's ever gone wrong - coupled with your apparent refusal to accept that the Conservatives are anything less than perfect in every respect - are serving no purpose but to make you look politically ill-informed.

Honestly. You're like the right-wing version of Sagamix. Just not as amusing.

Even if he does take them on and win, it's not the same thing any more is it? It would be a bit like kicking a corpse.


The world of communication has moved on a long time ago and the CWU should probably consider changing their name in truth, as 'Communication' is a very broad and slightly grand term for what they actually do which is just delivering internittent pieces of communication. Very slowly.

#33, potkettle wrote:
"Why is everyone baulking at privatising the Post Office. It is EU Law that we privatise it wether Brown Mandy or Cam like it or not, so what Cuddly Ken has said is merely legal reality."

Potk,

I just had another look at the EU's own policy guidelines for postal services. It does not currently require privatisation. It requires the opening up to competition in post services. Very different things.

Of course some counries have decided to at least partially privatise postal services. The German government allowed Deutsch Post to invest massively, not just in postal distribution but also in private freight forwarding and logistics companies - which provoked a lot of wrath from some of their private competitors.

I quite like the John Lewis partnership model - but somebody is going to have to put a lot of money in to get Royal Mail stable and competitive.

I rate the past decade as a complete waste in terms of government trying to get Royal Mail into shape.

Should we expect a 'winter of discontent'? Please will someone invite me to the beer and sandwiches?

The problem for us as a nation is that if the Royal Mail disappears all the other postal services which sell on their postal contracts to Royal Mail will have no-one to deliver their mail.The Royal mail is the default postal service for all deliveries that the other companies see as being non cost-effective.

Instead of paying massive salaries to Royal Mail executives it would be more cost-effective to pay more modest management salaries and use the money saved to employ more postal workers, who actually pound the streets in all weathers delivering the mail.

Given the unfairness of the Royal Mail pay and pensions structure its not really surprising that postal workers want to strike. I certainly would.

I'm sick of privatisations. I'm sick of cheapskate Conservative politicians trying to make political capital out of this. I'm sick of the Royal Mail and Post Office services being cherry-picked and handed over to large corporations.

In my opinion, from Thatcher onwards, right up till now, the Royal Mail has effectively been raped by successive governments.

I run a couple of online businesses. I send out all my sale items with the Royal Mail. And yes, maybe I will get some complaints from customers, but at the end of it all , when I chat on the doorstep with my local postman, I want to speak with someone who is happy in his work, and not being nailed into the ground.

Nick Robinson.., Westminster Village..., Yuk

grandantidote

(it's grawth, by the way, not grath)

"#By all means disagree with what they would do, but claiming they have no policies is like standing in the middle of a forest and claiming there are no trees.

Only to you and your Tory friends."

So you are saying that only Tories can see trees in forests?

"#Oh, and before you witter on about inheritance tax, remember that the labour party has decided to increase the thresholds and allow transferability, giving roughly the same overall threshold as the tory policy would.

No comparison my friend."

So there is no comparison between a tory policy of roughly £1 million threshold for IHT and a labour policy of roughly £1 million threshold for IHT. Some strange maths going on there, I'd like that one explained please.

And some questions for you - have you visited the Tory party website and read their policies? Did you listen to all the policy announcements during conference week?

Nick I don't think this post is particularly helpful, the macho language of strong and weak does not move this issue on.

The post service is in a mess and is beset by political interference and if David Cameron was a leader he would have not tried to make political capital out of this dispute, - but I bet if Labour were in opposition they would be doing the same thing. The problem is that the world has moved on but the power of this Union has meant they have been able to insulate themselves from the reality of email. At the same time interference in the pricing system has meant it cannot be run properly as a business.

The major concern is any political interference delays the modernisation of the working practises of this important institution. Gordon Brown is not weak for avoiding getting involved in the dispute, he does have to answer for his previous interference in the attempt to bring in commercial partners.

However David Cameron does not come out of this well. Whereas he could have showed statesman like support in saying the government should not get involved in the dispute- he took the easy route in playing politics making school debating points. The only person who comes out of this with any credit is Peter Mandelson!


BTW what has happened to David Cameron's hair - he looked like Swiss Tony

why is he going for the slick salesman / estate agent image?

If it could be privatised it would be.. I reckon, from the outside things are not that simple.
If it was possible would not someone have done this by now?

I am all for a challenge if anyone wants to take me up up on the idea........................

It is difficult to understand why the leaders of our two main parties are so keen to privatise Royal Mail. It is clear that a large proportion of the general public want it to stay publicly owned. They cannot imagine a private firm continuing to deliver a 500g package promptly anywhere in the UK for a fixed price.

I suspect that it is because our leaders are stuck in a time warp and still think it is a good idea to transfer the capital cost of updating Royal Mail from the public sector to the private sector.

They do not seem to have noticed that since the credit crunch the world of finance has changed and is unlikely to change back for some time, if ever. Even if they are not forced to do so by regulation, private lenders and borrowers will be much more cautious than they were for, some time to come. This means that privatisations, PFIs etc. are an even worse idea than they were before the credit crunch. It is not only not longer necessary, but actually undesirable, to divert some of the much more restricted supply of private capital for public purposes.

If our leaders had half the imagination of their Victorian forefathers, they would now be thinking of merging all of the national mail services throughout the EU, to offer a fixed price service over the whole EU.

Think what a boost this, along with universal use of the euro, would give to e-commerce within the EU. It would be particular beneficial for the inhabitants of an island off the west coast of the European continent.

I have to say that privatising anything is a struggle for the UK governments. Getting it right, so you don't end up with private monopolies, is even harder. Royal Mail (apart from the from/to anywhere universal delivery commitment) is just another distribution organisation.

What I don't understand is how Brown believes that privatising the Land Registry would make sense. I mean - there's only the land we have, we aren't making any more. And where's the competition going to come from? Would anyone like to end up with house or farm details on two or three companies who have slightly different boundaries drawn? Sounds like a litigation nightmare.

And I gather they consider flogging off the Ordnance Survey set-up. It may creak and have a flawed business model, but would you want an organisation that maps UK land and sea to be in the hands of a foreign company?

This blog is bizarre. Couldn't actually believe what I was reading it's so bad.

Nick - you spend far more time dreaming up rather silly jibes around what the Tories might or might not do than critiquing what the Government is actually doing today in running the country.

To talk about the ancient history of what either party tried to do 20+ years ago is irrelevant. Things change enormously, both Labour and Tories. Well, except Labour always ultimately bankrupt the country.

Cameron's point is bang on: Brown is weak, tired, has no ideas, and can't even manage to make coherent arguments any more. He is hopelessly in knots over this issue and trying to play both sides. Yet he's the Prime Minister, responsible and with the power to sort it out! Leadership? Clarity of vision? Integrity to take, stand by and explain a difficult decision? Please!

As for slamming Cameron when he can't do anything one way or the other based on what others did 20+ years ago is just plain weak.

The truth of Cameron's comments obviously hit home at Labour HQ and hurt. Hence this dire attempt at some form of rebuttal. Delivered, natually, by the BBC. Seriously out of touch!

You said on BBC News tonight...
"Not many political leaders have a gang of dark suited heavies with them"

in referring to Nick Griffin.

a) you lied (think about it)
b) not many political leaders have rent-a-mob a few eyars away trying to do you harm !

The BNP is here to stay, and quite possibly thrive. This is because the mainstream pillocks you hang out with and milk for material have totally lost the plot so far as the working class people of Britain (especially England) are concerned.

Khrystalar 55

Completely overtaken by your desire to be patronising, as you clearly were, you missed, by a mile, one of more important points I was trying to make in my post 5. I could tell you to read it again and then have another go at your 55, but that would probably be a waste of time. So, quick reprise here for your benefit.

The problem, as I see it, is not that elements of the Post Office were successfully privatised. Nor indeed, the general principle of the rump of the Post Office being part-privatised. The problem is the specific model that was used by Brown and Hewitt. By creating virtual "privatisation loans" (which are interest-bearing) as well as taking dividends on their "shares", they used the appearance of creating a company structure for the Post Office to syphon off a significant amount of the organisation's turnover, which has had the effect of robbing it of cash. The nature of this process is that they take money from the PO even if the PO makes a loss. Thus, the Post Office is starved of the money it would otherwise have been able to use, over time, for investment and, as one of the posters above noted (perhaps a bit more perceptively than you) for controlling the deficit in the employees pension scheme.

Just to emphasise, this part-privatisation model was very specific to the Post Office and very proudly advocated by Brown and Hewitt, whose political baby it was. It has been extraordinarily efficient at removing money from the Post Office, and is clearly a very significant contributor to its two most significant problems - lack of investment and the pension deficit. My association of Brown and Hewitt with the biggest problems that the Post Office now has, seems therefore to be fair and reasonable.

Over to you, Mr K.

Is this situation going to be used as another swipe at the Tories ? It is not the Tories' responsibility yet, the incompetent incumbent government has that privilege,but Brown and his cohorts are now in the position they accuse the Tories of, doing nothing. Brown or Mandellson, who after all takes a whopping salary as business minister should order the Post Office management to sack all those who fail to appear for work and take on and train new employees. That is what management is paid to do,and if they fail to manage, then they too should be replaced by someone who can do the job.The public employ them all and are entitled to service for their money, not inefficiency and industrial blackmail by the unions.

58 andy-in-France

"Should we expect a 'winter of discontent'? Please will someone invite me to the beer and sandwiches?"

=======================================
Never mind what Cameron would doin this situation, or history lessons regarding who was to blame for what many years ago.......

I think that this is just the beginning and another "winter of discontent" could be on the way. I think the comment that the unions know that we have a very weak PM leading a very weak government. Brown has tried his usual bunker McCavity approach, not wanting to bring industrial relations "into the "political arena" - I'll bet he does! But I think we can all see where this one is heading.

As for Mandelson and New Labour and his role in all this - this is the start of the "End of the Peer" show.

Beer and sandwiches ? No way, the caters will be on strike too.

66 bluntjeremy

Good post! I couldn't agree more.

Let's not forget that Heath signed the Treaty of Rome in 1972, and Wilson lied to us to get the Common Market Referendum through.

Traitors both.

let's get rid of this conniving duopoly of red and blue that has been dragging our country into the gutter for decades.

Don't vote Labour or Tory.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Nicks mention of Ted Heath reminded me of something Heath once said "The unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism".

Well, our bloggers provide another example, young Crozier of the Royal Mail on £3M and yer average postie on £18K, which is an earnings ratio of about 166:1.

The Japanese are very keen on keeping these earnings ratios within socially acceptable limits and even mighty world-wide companies such as Toyota have an earnings ratio of around 50:1 between the chairman and the lowest paid worker.

By way of contrast, the Americans have frankly obscene earnings ratios running into the 1000's:1 between highest and lowest paid in a given company.

It is a fault within the capitalist model that allows this lack of meaningful accountability to happen, often against the wishes of shareholders, who are effectively neutered.

Can't see David Cameron tackling this, we'll probably get the usual waffle about the market forces.

64 Stanblogger

Maybe this is something our real new leader Mr Blair could take forward. Problem solved!

David Cameron is a big fake, I'm not buying it for a second, and with Britain being projected ( along with France ) to have the highest growth in the EU next year, Gordon Brown surely done something right !

The answer to the question posed by Nick is "no chance". Cameron is a Thatcherite through and through. Ted Heath was bedevilled by personality flaws but was a deep thinking man with a real social conscience. He also had a real hinterland outside of politics. Cameron, on the other hand, is a snake oil salesman. Heath forged his beliefs through witnessing fascism in the 30's and the tragedies of the Second World War. Cameron's beliefs were forged through "japery" in the Bullingdon Club and being Norman Lamont's bag man during the ERM crisis. The contrast is stark and not particularly flattering.

nate_oz 76

"and with Britain being projected ( along with France ) to have the highest growth in the EU next year, Gordon Brown surely done something right"

Sorry, but you are going to have to provide a reference for that one!

Privatisaton in the 80s and 90s just meant that the customer ended up paying more for the executives to get higher salaries while people loose their jobs and shares and work end up getting exported to foreign shores.

The Mail managemennt want a confrontation to trigger these moves. It suits them at the fag end of this Labour government. Ironically, it would hve suited Labour three or four years ago.

The Royal Mail is in a disasterous state. I don't trust it at all. It's a real shame. The zeitgeist has moved with regard to holding on to it as a nationalised entity. These strikes are an insult to the rest of us taking cuts and workig harder. The Royal Mail deliveries get later and later and often I get most of my neighbours mail and never see my own. It's a shambles.

Sell it off to be made more efficient. With the proliferation of broadband most mailed items can now be tranfered electronically or by private courier.

I am a postie,i went to work on Wednesday just a normal joe worker i awake this morning and i'm a militant.
I am lectured about modernisation by a unelected peer , a person who has written so many resignation letters he could keep the royal mail profitable single handed, I know what Gordon Brown , lord Mandelson, uncle tom cobbly and all think about the post strike , but i have heard nothing from Adam Crozia where is he, does he exist is he a recluse, Is it possible that a man destroying a great puplic industry can do so in total anonymity,i have been watching all the news channels today so i know where Nick Griffin is but where is CROZIA

@ 73

the only post snipped on the entire blog! quelle honour; all I was saying is that we should be looking at nationalising a few things (retail banking and mortgage lending, for example) rather than privatising something ... delivering letters ... which is surely a public service and should be run that way, rather than as a "for profit" company

76. At 7:58pm on 22 Oct 2009, nate_oz wrote:
...... and with Britain being projected ( along with France ) to have the highest growth in the EU next year, Gordon Brown surely done something right !
*************************

Wow! You obviously have information that is not available to The Treasury or the Bank of England.
Can you please enlighten us all as to where this knowledge can be found?

I think we need take very little heed of what Cameron says ..he is a rather ineffective rude posh person ..who in the true nature of the etonite thinks that he can call other people useless when in fact he is the ineffectual one...does he have a policy on anything ? he can use his ascerbic posh tongue but does he actually have a policy on anything..all I have ever seen or heard is total negativity..not a positive sign anywhere...do Cameron and his giggling friend Osborne actually imagine for one moment that some half baked idea about mail privatisation will get anywhere with the people of this country...for goodness sake electorate do not inflict this clown on us for the last few years of my life

nate_oz wrote:
David Cameron is a big fake, I'm not buying it for a second, and with Britain being projected ( along with France ) to have the highest growth in the EU next year, Gordon Brown surely done something right !

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I am sorry nate_oz but your claim is simply untrue, Britain does not even figure in the top 5 EU countries. Every economic standards shows how false your claim is.

The only thing Gordon Brown has done right is to bring Mandelson back into the government to stop a total collapse of the country (and I cannot stand Mandelson).

My regular postie delivered my mail today as per usual (i.e. a 'second' delivery only, first deliveries having been abolished).

Is the strike crumbling already?

Can union members defenestrate their bolshie leaders?

sagamix 82

"we should be looking at nationalising a few things (retail banking and mortgage lending, for example)"

It is in the nature of nationalisation that the state compensates the shareholders whose asset is being taken away from them. That even happened back in 1947 with the railways. In the case of the UK banking industry, albeit that we already own whatever percentage of it (25%?), the rest represents a really substantial sum of money. Do you have a plan for how we might be able to afford to do that, given all the other current calls on our present and future tax revenues?

#86, MaxSceptic wrote:
"My regular postie delivered my mail today as per usual (i.e. a 'second' delivery only, first deliveries having been abolished).

Is the strike crumbling already?"

MaxS,

I rather think the strike was initially (today) to designed to impact vehicle movements, so no mail would be carried about. Then tomorrow, the last-mile posties would be on strike.

So I'll be peering through the window on Friday to see whether I get a bunch of junk mail or not.

jrp @ 87

wouldn't do it that way, JR - I'd take one we own (RBS say) and then I'd sell off the wholesale side (if worth anything) leaving just retail and residential mortgage lending - now we have a bank with a AAA rating in an industry bedevilled by lack of trust - customers will flock there - especially when we make sure that this National Bank (NB should we call it?) offers better terms than any other - it will only need to break even so it'll be able to do that - there will also be a new Regulation which says that a residential mortgage in the UK has to be offered at the "official mortgage rate" and the OMR will be set at a level which only NB will be in a position to offer - bang

i am fed up with the lack of pm candidates who lack the drive, strength, willpower and charisma needed to grab this nation by the balls and get it into shape. How far have we fallen that we will readily accept a man, who is at best, average because our own current leader is so bad? Secondly, can someone tell me how Tony Blair was able to walk out of his job? surely its somewhere on the contract that he HAS to serve out his years of service.

sagamix 89

Most amused by your National Soviet Bank idea. What happens to retail savings, which is also quite a big part of RBS's business? Are you going to impose a national official savings rate too?

Since the National Soviet Bank isn't going to make any profit, it isn't going to pay any corporation tax. Likewise, it seems to be designed to drive the other banks out of business, so they aren't going to pay corporation tax either. How are you going to cope with the sudden shortage of tax revenue? Given that I recall you have already put up income tax and VAT so as to solve the national debt problem without expenditure cuts, and we already agreed before that corporation tax rates can't be increased (to stimulate taxable profitability in the non-banking sector) then further alternative revenue seems to be rather thin on the ground. So where are you going to find the additional £15bn per year to rectify the tax hole?

#89, sagamix wrote:
"jrp @ 87
wouldn't do it that way, JR - I'd take one we own (RBS say) and then I'd sell off the wholesale side (if worth anything) leaving just retail and residential mortgage lending - now we have a bank with a AAA rating in an industry bedevilled by lack of trust - customers will flock there - especially when we make sure that this National Bank (NB should we call it?) offers better terms than any other - it will only need to break even so it'll be able to do that - there will also be a new Regulation which says that a residential mortgage in the UK has to be offered at the "official mortgage rate" and the OMR will be set at a level which only NB will be in a position to offer - bang"

I'm afraid jrp has a point, Saga,

Maybe you forgot we also own Norther Rock and a heck of a big stake in Lloyds HBoS (the lattter with a massive share of doemstic mortgages).

Do you propose rolling them up into a big SCOTTISH Bank? Then see the SNP claim it if/when Scotland becomes independent?

Tell you what. There's never been a better time to nationalise the UK car manufacturers. (Seize foreign assets - but that's nothing new internationally.) They are actually pretty good nowadays.

@ 91

What happens to retail savings? Are you going to impose a national official savings rate too?

are you an accountant, JR? - reason I ask is because you're showing that quintissential accountant's trait of trying to rationalise every good idea (and this IS a good idea!) out of existence with an obsession about the detail - but okay, yes of course the NB (there's no S in there) does current AND deposit account banking, together with mortgages - sorry, just wanted to bold that word - and yes, the rate on deposit accounts will be such that one would be crazy to put one's money anywhere else - the tax? - not a worry for me - it's all fungible, you can't look at it the way you're doing - any case, the enormous economic benefits of having the NB instead of the current bunch of charlatans will dwarf any of your little "technical" problems

You forget that Heath's winning the postal strike began a series of strikes and his economic policies led to an incoming Labour government being saddled with economic woes which led directly to the Winter of Discontent- The Tories like to forget Anthony Barber as they like to forget Black Wednesday. Barber enforced 'pay restraint' which left Heath unable to govern. The Labour party then had to go to the IMF to borrow money to fill the black hole left by the oil crisis and the endless strikes exacerbated by Heath and Barber's policies. The IMF forced Labour to continue the Tory pay restraint policies and that was what led to the huge public sector workers' strike. When Ken Clarke talks about inheriting an economic mess from Labour governments, he must know that he is talking nonsense.
The post strike is just another disaster created at Executive level by Crozier et al. All the various private sector bosses brought in have lost the Mail business and money (remember the 'Consignia' fiasco) and have damaged labour relations. A cynic might suggest that this is the reason these people are brought in: to soften up the industry for private sale. Its what happened to all the other Nationalised Industries. Ask any postal worker and they will tell you they look for a decently remunerated redundancy package every year because the Post Office management are both ignorant of and contemptuous of the workforce. Each 'modernisation' has led to worse working conditions, tyrannical management: they feel disrespected and do not trust their managers- Normally long suffering,mild people, they seem to have reached the end of their collective tether. Sacking Crozier and his team would be the most affordable redundancies in the service.

people know that there will be another government soon and are trying to get what they can out of a weak government.the same thing happened in 78/79.the only hope for people is ,if they have enough money, is to clear out of the uk, the country is plainly a basket case.I support the posties generally, who wants to trudge the streets 6 days a week for peanuts while brown bends over backwards to help bankers who have wrought misery over the uk...brownwatch 219 days.

sagamix 93

I am a research scientist. As a matter of fundamental practice, we test ideas for their various qualities by analysis of their detail.

I am intrigued by your

"the tax? - not a worry for me - it's all fungible, you can't look at it the way you're doing"

You seem to be using the word "fungible", a word most people here will not be familiar with, to imply some greater than apparent practicality of the tax aspects of your bank nationalisation idea. In fact, all that you have written can be taken to mean is that at the exchequer level, when one source of tax revenue is lost, it can be replaced with another. That, of course, (with caveats) is a given - I implicitly acknowledged it in my post. The point is, where is that money going to come from? Your idea, that you say is a good one, in fact doesn't come close to that status until you can answer that question.

93#

Darn those pesky accountants, eh Saga? Always coming in and micturating on ones CTP pommes frites....

84#


So.... did you have anything at all to say in that post, apart from class war bilge?


thought not.

#82 and #87 what so the bank managers too can be directed where they should lend the monies. SO we get more state aid for unsustainable projects in heart land HMG areas to buy votes just like we have with
current HMG spending. might as well rename the UK UK-USSR

saga you are in danger of becoming a figure of fun. You are not totalitarian (you say) but you would ban specific non-illegal parties just cos they say something you don't like, and now you would force all banks other than your NB out of business, by adopting your state-controlled mortgage rate. Then you want to natioinalise a load of stuff (more state control). And when asked where the money comes from to do it, or to keep it going once you've done it, your response is effectively to raise your arms high and say "He will provide".

Saga, send us a postcard from cuckoo land please, I hear its quite nice there!