Comments by "Curious Crow" (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx) on "the future of Royal mail is uncertain- but much of the rot goes back at least to Kwasi Kwateng" video.

I think you are bring too generous. The truth is always somewhere in the middle. Royal Mail was for tears a cash cow for successive governments, and relative to private logistic firms, it suffered from under investment. But even when investment was made available, it wasn't always successful. Royal Mail, if it had had the management that wanted to it to successfully transition from a largely letter driven driven business to one focused on parcel delivery it would not have been burdened with subsidising it's competition. Don't forget, Royal Mail was a natural monopoly, and expect to easily complete it's transformation whilst basically losing income to its parachuted in rivals while RM delivered their letters was absurd. And the model they proposed for this transformation was to turn its workforce into an extension of the Gig economy. Now, if you're an ex postie, you would have realised that was a bad idea. Yes, processing of letters was virtually mechanised, but still needed manual sortation of small and large packets. And even large letters and magazines require manual sortation, because RM customers can't always send mails that can be mechanically sorted or aren't addressed in UPO format. But the private sector didn't want to touch those low-margin mails did they? They only wanted the nice, standardised corporate mailshots, for which they paid RM less than the economic value to deliver. So as you can probably guess where I'm coming from by now. Royal Mail did not create its structural problems, or it's uneven management. Neither did they create it's customer-focused, deliver at all costs, community ethos either, despite relatively low basic pay and physically demanding workloads and long hours. The organisation wasn't allow to adapt early enough to the changing world around it. This laid up problems for the future, which we are experiencing. For RM to fully succeed in making it's transition seamlesslessly, and truly compete on its own terms with the private sector, it would have had to have different management and different political masters, who truly wanted it to succeed. But the process was more ideological rather than pragmatic, and we get what we have now. A company with a lot of potential, but with a lot of barriers to success. Yes, things could be done differently, but RM was never like DHL etc., who could build state of the art almost fully automated parcel processing plants and have processes that could move work in and out seamlessly. DHL would never have to potentially deliver and pick up mail from 31 million addresses, and handle mails that couldn't be mechanised. But RM has to, and giving that away I feel is a mistake. Allowing it to be sold into foreign ownership just doesn't feel right.
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You need to check your facts. The Horizon Scandal began *before privatisation which separated Post Office Ltd from Royal Mail plc. nobody wanted to buy POL, because it was operating at a huge loss, and the subpostmaster contracts were, and still are onerous, and City insiders probably heard on the grapevine about the Horizon problems. That's why POL is still in public ownership since privatisation of Royal Mail in 2012. So the taxpayer will foot the bill. Privatisation was never meant to be a panacea for enterprises with structural problems. Why should it be? Private enterprises fail or are badly run as much as government enterprises are. And for the same very human reasons. So... Privatisation has failed in its goals, because we pay much more for services that are definitely not world beating or on par with the best in the world. If they really wanted to make Royal Mail fit for the 21st century they should have sold it to their workers. Why? Because they know the ins and out of the business better than the management and directors. But the British Establishmrnt believe in managerialism, but don't train them well, and still rely on cronyism. That's the main reason British productivity has behind it's peers. And these numpties still don't understand why countries that they bombed to smithereens in World War II rose like phoenixes and outproduce Britain industrially. That lack of faith in their workers is central to our problems, and the idea that AI won't decimate them is absurd. Even more problems are building up because financiers know about finance, but not much else. All their efforts over nearly 50 years, have resulted in no more intelligent answer to industrial and economic policy than "privatise it." And we are where we are. No wonder people are, at best skeptical, and at worst either apathetic or resentful and cynical. And sadly, they didn't begin to cotton on until the damage started to park up on the lawn of the middle classes. A house divided against itself cannot stand. It is crumbling, like our infrastructure. And the damage is extensive to the extent we are less fit for the 21st century than before.
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The whole of life is here in these comments... To not commit atrocities against yourself or others, you have to stop believing absurdities. You don't have to drink the Kool Aid, or even like that it exists. You just have to accept what is. Give up blame and embrace accountability for doing the best you can. Nothing stays the same forever, and you might not be around when it does change. But that's OK. In the meantime, the present, the only time you really ever have, decide what *your priorities are are, and aim for them. Not the priorities of others but what you really need to be content, and accept that will bring it's own problems and challeges too, but you won't mind those if those priorities are truly yours, and not just what someone says you should prioritise. The only path you can follow is the path you walk. And you don't know what opportunities you might find on it, especially if it's a road less travelled. Forget about the American Dream, and dream your own dream. Then use your imagination and be observant. Opportunities exist if you're willing to look for for them. Fortune not only favours the brave, but the observant too. Enjoy your journey.
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