Save the Royal Mail? Move on...

OVER the past decades, we've seen the destruction and annihilation of British culture as we know it. We've seen the privatisation of the rail industry, (it once used to be called British Rail, and now it's split into a series of private firms throughout the country. We've seen the destruction of the mining industry, which was a victory for Britain's first female Prime minister, the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, and, you could say that even good ol' British Fish and Chips is not how it used to be (but you can't privatise that?). But now, another old British favourite, and problem-ridden institutional mail-delivery service, could be on the brink of shooting itself in the head, just like Arthur Scargill's crusade to try to defeat Thatcher over mining did in the late 1970', early 80s, the Royal Mail`is under fire.

Can us Brits really envisage a Britain without the Royal Mail? It's a brand in it's own right, just as Dairy Milk is, and we rely on it to deliver our parcels, cards, letters, and other bits and bobs on time and on budget, and since the rise of the world wide web, where you can easily send an e-card to a loved one or friend is now on the rise, it seems inevitable that that much beloved brand that we've all in the past known for its reliability and, (at once profitability,) is going to sadly come to an end - and it may just be the nail in the coffin this Winter that does it, by hundreds of thousands of staff being asked (reluctantly as the case may or may not be) to go on national strikes by their union, the Communication and Workers' Union, led by Adam Crozier. Ask your local postman if he could imagine not having a Royal Mail, and he would probably laugh in your face. The reaction would probably be, 'this is all I've ever known, ' and it was probably like that for the miners two or so decades ago. But with his skills, he could probably switch to a private courier service and maybe even receive a pay rise? But now net sites such as Amazon, E-Bay, and private courier delivery firms will probably mean that we'll be paying a fee to have our Christmas Cards delivered in future?

It's a sad but realistic fact that times move on. If you don't embrace change, it ends up moving without you, and you get left hollering in the past. We all should respect the past, but keep our eyes on the future. So is this the end of the Royal Mail as we know it? Of course, it hasn't helped that the British government have dithered in the past few months over the issue. Maybe all this pain and suffering could have been avoided if there had been firm action from the Lord Prince of Darkness Peter Mandelson and co, (the First secretary for about anything? But perhaps this government can't be bothered any more, and realise that a potential future David Cameron government will have to deal with the issue. Better to just to sit on the fence, and let the workers and the union destroy themselves from within?