So the government's plans to sell off about 30% of Royal Mail are again getting attention. Most of the newspaper world are of course siding with the government on this.
The Sun says that this "shambolic" operation should of been sold off long ago. I say The Sun newspaper should of been thrown in the bin ages ago, and Rupert Murdoch sent down into our underground sugar caves. I'd also suggest that this would be a good time to try and push your Sun-reading friends over to better newspapers.
As far as I can see Royal Mail works fine, I get my post just fine. In fact a couple of weeks ago I ordered a few bits and pieces off the internet, all at the same time and all were dispatched the same day.
The first item to turn up? The one sent through Royal Mail (1st class), not only was it the first to turn up, our postman normally gets here around 11:00, it also was considerably cheaper than through the other couriers, CityLink got here about 4 hours later, DHL got here a couple of days later.
Not only that if it does turn up on a day I'm not at home I only have to walk over to the sorting office to get it. If I miss a CityLink or DHL delivery - damn I have to walk to Bristol or Taunton or somewhere to go and get it, kind of difficult, that or try and juggle it with days I have off work.
Sure Royal Mail has a £5.9 billion pension deficit. Oh of course we can't put the money in towards that, where on Earth would we get the money from? Oh wait - we found hundreds of billions for the banks, I'm sure we can find a few billion for Royal Mail to sort their pension fund out, if not we'll just take the national lottery's profits for a couple of years. Problem solved.
Of course this also highlights the problems with company pensions. I say get rid of them, let the state handle pensions itself. Simple no more hassle, no more paper work, no more worrying if the company is going to fold. With today's technology we can really get some nifty stuff going on too. How about being able to change your National Insurance contributions through DWP website where you can easily see how much you pay in and see how much you'd get back in your pension. Failing that in Post Offices have a table and a form to send off to do the same thing. Simple. Everyone get's a pension, yes we'd need a bigger state pension, perhaps something that could bring us up to the European average, and those who want a bigger pension can pay in more money. No more worrying about companies going bust and the like. And yes, companies will be legally required to pay you the value they were putting into any pension scheme. We need to unhook people's pensions from the disaster that is capitalism.
Anyway, enough rambling about that over Royal Mail we should demand the following:
1) Sack Peter Mandleson, send him down the underground sugar caves with his mate Murdoch.
2) Demand all Labour MPs to bloody stand up for the workers for a change. I'm sick to death of the government having its way thanks to the Tory vote.
3) Give Royal Mail the £6 billion they need to plug their pension hole, and another few billion for genuine modernisation (not the cost cutting modernisation) where required.
4) Look into the feasibility of establishing Royal Mail's monopoly on postal services again.
5) Get those Post Offices open again, heck make them branches for our nationalised banks (yes might as well finish nationalising the banking system while we're at it).