Don't Mention the Elephant!

A certain wry amusement here in relation to this report:

Individual Royal Mail customers now have to contend with higher stamp prices and a complicated sizing system as a result of liberalisation, which has provided them with "no significant benefit".

The review, by an independent panel, also warned that ending the Royal Mail's monopoly posed a "substantial threat" to the company's financial stability and the universal postal service in general.

John Hutton, the Business Secretary, said Royal Mail would have to undergo a wide-ranging shake-up in order to survive.

Well, yes, all those things are true. as is this:

The postal market was fully opened up in 2006 on the instruction of the regulator, Postcomm.

But if there's no great benefit then why in fact is all this being done? An important question, no? Especially as this is all tied into the great rural uprising de nos jours, the campaign against Post Office closures?

In the actual report that the report is about:

Liberalisation

25. The First European Postal Services Directive in 1997 introduced common
rules for the development of an internal market for postal services and
the improvement of quality of service. The Directive aimed for the
controlled and gradual introduction of competition into the market
coupled with independent regulation. It recognised the importance of
postal services for the economic and social cohesion of the Community
and provided for a universal postal service at affordable prices.

26. The main elements of the Directive were transposed into UK legislation in
the Postal Services Act 2000. The Act gives Postcomm a primary duty to
ensure the provision of a universal service at an affordable uniform tariff,
and to promote effective competition where appropriate. Since 2003,
the regulator has introduced competition into the UK market in a number
of stages: through niche licences, by staged opening of the bulk mail
market; and then by full liberalisation on 1 January 2006.

27. Some European countries have yet to open their markets. The Third
European Postal Services Directive18 passed earlier this year maintains
the principles of the First Directive and sets out a framework for the
liberalisation of the European market by 2012. Returning to the days of
statutory postal monopolies is not a policy option in the European Union.

Ah, it's not actually something that we decided to do, nor Postcomm...it's something that we've been told to do by those nice people in Brussels. Now it still might be a good idea, it might not be, but it's not our decision to take. Isn't that interesting?

And it makes that Post Office closures campaign really rather difficult. For in such a liberalised market, State Aid cannot be given, so even if Ministers wanted to bung some money at them to appease their employers, the voters, they can't. Applications for this sort of thing have to go to the Berlaymont, not Parliament.

Just another little story that shows where we're really ruled from, don't you think?