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Royal Mail privatisation bill unveiled

Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that private buyers will be allowed to own up to 90% of Royal Mail, while the Post Office may be mutualised.

He was giving details of the Postal Services Bill, designed to pave the way for Royal Mail's privatisation.

Mr Cable made clear that the government would not oppose a foreign company buying up the Royal Mail.
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As has been talked about now for a while - privatisation of Royal Mail and a splitting up of Post Office counters.

Disgracefully put into motion by Labour, and now to be actioned by the fucking Lib Dems :mad:
 
Cable also announced that the Post Office network, which is not included in the sell-off, may be converted into a mutual ownership structure, and promised there would be no further closures of Post Office outlets.

"It seems to me that the Post Office is ideally suited to a John Lewis or Co-operative Group style structure, where employees, sub-postmasters and communities get a greater say in how the company is run," he said.

John Lewis is owned by its employees, who are granted "partner" status and a stake in the company in order to encourage employee loyalty and service quality.

He said that the Co-operative UK had already been asked to put together a proposal for how mutualisation could be done.

"This would be the Big Society in action," added the Liberal Democrat, endorsing the Conservative party's slogan for greater community participation in government services.
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Cable buying into the 'big society' thing... all very nice making Post Offices mutuals, but what happens when our communities haven't got the resources to keep them going? Bye bye Post Offices.
 
stephj said:
Disgracefully put into motion by Labour, and now to be actioned by the fucking Lib Dems :mad:
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ive got a friend who worked behind the scenes on new labs Royal Mail privatisation bill - she said that what was proposed by mandy then (what was it, a third privatised? cant remember now) would be the best option possible - something had to give, and the tories were always clear they would privatise the lot - ken clarke said it with a grin during the last round of strikes - and so it has come to pass. my posty mate said that many of his fellow workers had come to the conclusion back then that the game was up and were seriously thinking about the voluntary redundancies floating about. hes stayed on and has been having a a fucked up work schedule ever since the last settlement.

Mutualisation of the POs is a good thing in principle, but how the finances would work needs to be seen through. I support mutualisation and cooperatives on principle, and have more faith than other statists that workers can run them for themselves (several cases of new labour actively blocking worker-led moves to mutualise of their own free will, the case of the dartford crossing being a key one) - but if POs cant stand up on their financial feet, then this is a public service that the state/we should subsidise to some extent. i dont know enough about how PO accounts stand, though would like to know if anyone else does. What is the current business model for POs?
 
I'm still pissed off about the local PO being closed. Now everyone has to brave the hideous large PO that is a fair distance away for old people to walk and a thoroughly unpleasant experience.
 
ska invita said:
ive got a friend who worked behind the scenes on new labs Royal Mail privatisation bill - she said that what was proposed by mandy then (what was it, a third privatised? cant remember now) would be the best option possible
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No the best option possible would be for it to remain nationally owned and for the private firms that undermine it to be forced to pay their way
 
redsquirrel said:
No the best option possible would be for it to remain nationally owned and for the private firms that undermine it to be forced to pay their way
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agreed. all letter post to be Royal Mail and no leeches allowed to charge businesses for delivering something the post office deliver
 
what will actually happen is prices will go up (esp in rural areas, sort of karma for Tory voters), the service will be worse, workers will be told to do more for less so more and more mail will just be bunged back in the postbox at the end of the round, dumped etc. So not only will people have no jobs and no money to afford the goodies they offer, they'll also resent paying the outrageous postage sums that will ensue. Great.
 
ska invita said:
Mutualisation of the POs is a good thing in principle, but how the finances would work needs to be seen through. I support mutualisation and cooperatives on principle, and have more faith than other statists that workers can run them for themselves (several cases of new labour actively blocking worker-led moves to mutualise of their own free will, the case of the dartford crossing being a key one) - but if POs cant stand up on their financial feet, then this is a public service that the state/we should subsidise to some extent. i dont know enough about how PO accounts stand, though would like to know if anyone else does. What is the current business model for POs?
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Co-operatives and mutualisation aren't good enough on their own - they need to be placed within a wider context of social equality and mutually recognised social needs. In our current wider context of rabid greed, private ransacking of public services for personal profit, destruction of the idea of society wide commitments and so on you're not going to get co-operatives based on social solidarity. The idea of mutualisation involved in these proposals is quite simply window dressing. Reminiscent if anything of the forced mutalisations or co-operativism from above of Fascist Italy - 15 000 co-operatives ran nationally. Mutualisation isn't the key principle at work here and shouldn't be the thing those opposed to this ridiculous extremism concentrate their fire on, private profit is. Demand a properly mutualised post service ran by and in the interests of its workers and users, and don't even consider supporting these proposals.
 
Condoleezza Rice's head on our stamps!

Condoleezza Rice's head on our stamps!

The Telegraph: Government admits Queen's head could be lost from stamps

condistamp.jpg
 
Hah. With the sops to current workers, this'll undoubtedly go through.

Shame - the Royal Mail actually works pretty well, so I'd have thought that it was worth hanging on to.
 
there was some twat on LBC phone in last night saying how outrageous it was - but only because they were losing the Queens head. Yes, a change of design is more offensive to them than the running down of a service, thousands of redundancies, huge price rises etc...
 
Crispy said:
to the best of my knowledge, fridgemagnet doesn't watch tv.
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It's true, I don't - but I'm still a bit worried about this accusation from Mr Dow of being weird, given that he is continuing to demonstrate so clearly how not weird at all he is about Condoleeza Rice :( Maybe I'm weird and just don't appreciate it :(
 
either way the irrelevant cunt is wanking on about shite. We need to be defending the mail, not crying about it. For fucks sake many small villages are being gutted because the post room won't turn a profit. Cos turning a profit is totally what infrastructure is for. Wankstains.
 
Lol, a forum consisting of Peter Dow and the legend that is Socialist Steve, with his superior form of Marxism based upon how people smile. Genius.
 
frogwoman said:
Who's Socialist Steve?
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A well known 'character'. Had a theory on how you could judge people by their first smile, and how this was what Marxism had got wrong. Last heard of setting up various 'revolutionary platforms' in Plaid, the SNP and Mebyon Kernow, which appeared to be a series of Yahoo! groups and little else. I was on a couple for a while, I seem to remember a distinct turn towards poetry at one point. I believe he started in Militant!

Dennis Nilsen and Socialist Steve. Winner.
 
Still at least his hearts in the right place i guess, which is more than could be said for dennis nilsen :hmm:
 
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