So the Royal Mail wants to close around half of all post offices. The Daily Telegraph has a ridiculous campaign to force taxpayers to pay to keep them open. Uneconomic post offices cost everyone else £150 million a year in subsidies, but as I have written before, they are so "core" to communities, that I apparently have to subsidise them.
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My answer is simple. The Royal Mail should sell all of the post offices it does not believe it can run profitably. If some are franchises, then the current owners should renegotiate their terms or face closure, and perhaps run a competing service (competition has been allowed for the Royal Mail since the beginning of the year, finally!). Otherwise, they should close. Why? Well what is a post office? It is a stamp shop, an envelope shop, a delivery shop. It's a friggin' shop!
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People don't demand the government do something about grocers, bookshops, shoe shops, so why post offices? It tugs at the strings of the elderly in particular, when the government did so much more, and when transport was poor and more expensive than it is today.
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Post offices are unprofitable either because they are inefficiently run or not enough people use it. So either have someone else run it, or face use it or lose it. Don't expect taxpayers to pay for something that is so important to your community, that you're not prepared to use it enough to pay for its cost. Frankly, if it isn't important enough for YOU to pay for it, don't expect me to.
3 comments:
Oh Christ, another libertarian citing Ayn Rand as an influence. Do you want to be taken seriously or not?
This from someone who was named "anonymous" by his parents....;-)
Indeed James, the brilliance!
Response 1: You like Ayn Rand, I don't. I don't say why, so you're wrong.
Response 3: I actually like the UK, I find it's vapid socialism and "if it hasn't been done here, it hasn't been done" attitude arrogant and childlike. Of course your own xenophobia speaks volumes, I'm sure you're welcomed when you go on your cultural fact finding missions to other countries in the intellectually robust way you approach arguments. Too hard to have a debate isn't it "captain"? Perhaps if you leave your roleplaying world and discover the real one a bit more, you'll learn something. It takes a prick to know one.
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