There's an old saying you'll know about people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing; the recent Royal Mail saga has been a perfect example.

You'll have heard the story that the plan is to effectively end the use of mail trains and replace them with hundreds of thousands of lorry journeys, and some air runs, instead.

I can't argue with the number crunchers who have calculated that the new system will save the business a lot of money. What I can argue, though, is that not all the relevant numbers have been put into the equation.

The "business" will not have to stand the cost of extra congestion, road accidents, and pollution, but the general public most certainly will. Perhaps the best way to illustrate the point, not for the first time, is to take the argument to an extreme conclusion. So, here we go, the Wright Way Forward for a VERY profitable mail service.

For starters, no deliveries beyond fifty yards from sorting offices, and only one delivery a month. You want it and you want it more often - come and get it then, it's cheaper for us. If you live in the country, or you are immobile, double tough. The costs, and staff, would tumble, but what the hell, let's count the profits. It may (!) be that the general public would suffer a smidge, but we didn't include them in the mail train plan, so why start now.

I'm not saying that Royal Mail shouldn't be run efficiently, but its still proud name is built on a foundation of public service. It's an expression which is often trumpeted by big cheeses of various persuasions, but how often is it really seen in genuine practice?

One thing which did surprise me was the apathetic public reaction to the story. Perhaps too many people have become accustomed to a low level of expectation on what we should have. Despite the rise of email and other electronic communication, the clunk of the letter box first thing in the morning (if you're lucky) still means a lot. It's really sad if today's people presume it's natural that, in many ways, public service should decline to a level below that our grandparents took for granted.

Published: 11/06/2003