TO the man in the Post Office queue, the idea that a company can shed 15,000 jobs - with more to come - is amazing.

Unless these people do nothing, services must be hit. This will force people to use rival firms, further damaging the Post Office which will have to cut again - a vicious circle.

And it is amazing that a company like Parcelforce can have been losing money for ten years - a whole decade - without anyone doing anything about it until its losses reach £15m a month.

But, then, these are the same managers who, two years ago, took the amazing decision to spend £2m changing the Royal Mail's traditional, and respected, name to Consignia - a modern nonsense that was reversed yesterday.

It is also amazing that when it costs 28p to deliver a first class letter, the Royal Mail is only allowed to charge 27p.

All of this, though, is in the past. What of the future? The Post Office's current pains are partly because it is being prepared to have its markets open to competition.

There is much speculation about the future shape of the Post Office - three separate companies, perhaps, specialising in parcels, letters and post offices.

While competition undoubtedly brings benefits and profits, it does not always take social factors into account. The competing railways did not always worry about the safety of their passengers or the state of their rails; competing postal delivery services may not always worry about smaller post offices in either rural or urban areas.

And competition rarely takes into account a strategic view: the privatised railways have added to the Post Office's problems since the Hatfield disaster. They are also vital to the Post Office's future as yesterday it was announced that 2,500 vehicles are to be dropped as more mail goes by the rails. The two cannot work independently of each other.

The Government is supporting yesterday's radical overhaul of Consignia - and it may secretly be wishing that such dramatic change can be wrought so easily within truly public services like the police and the NHS.

However, as Stephen Byers wriggles over Railtrack, the man in the Post Office queue hopes that the Government has the vision to avoid creating a Posttrack.

THERE can be few words to describe the shameful trend of distraction burglary of the elderly. Callous, heartless, despicable

But it is almost pointless using them, because those who trick 103-year-olds out of £100 are so low that they don't care what words anyone uses to describe their actions. They care only for themselves.