The Last Post - continued

Having got the fact that I wasn't invited to the local rally off of my chest (previous post), I now want to get serious.

I got to thinking about the current situation with the post office closures, and the Beeching railway closures of the '60's. Prior to that we had a service based national railway. The then government saw that it was costing the treasury money (many millions) and they couldn't have that could they?

So - they got in Dr Beeching (slasher to his friends). And that's exactly what he did, he slashed and burned his way through the service tearing up its infrastucture as he went. Public opinion was completely dismissed as irrelevant along the way. Big Mistake!

Then further down the line - we got railway privatisation. Even bigger mistake!

The Tories have actually admitted that now. Back in 2000, Bernard Jenkins said as much when he 'agreed wholheartedly' with Gerald Corbett (Railtrack) who said that railway had been ripped apart at privatisation and that the resulting structure was designed to maximise the proceeds to the Treasury, not safety or investment.

Nor, dare I add, service.

The similarities with the postal service are striking. The old railway was a comprehensive service backed up by a comprehensive infrastucture. It served the whole of the people of Great Britain and served them well, but it had to be subsidised. Once the notion of a subsidised service was sacrificed on the altar of profit, then we were lost.

You may be suprised to learn however, that British Rail at the time, received lower subsidies than did other European nationalised railway services. Now the so called 'private' rail companies that we have, are subsidised to the tune of at least £2bn p.a. Just imagine what BR could've done with that level of investment.

No matter, the benefit of this level of investment ultimately will go to the shareholders of these companies who must get a return on their investment.

Fast forward now to the current situation with Royal Mail. See the similarities? If you can't then I'm not going to spell it out. Suffice to say that we let politicians tinker with these essential services at our peril. These are people who are not to be trusted. If history shows anything, it shows that.

As with the old, closed, railway stations, so with the post offices. You don't appreciate what you have until it's gone.

I'm sad about this, but saddened most of all to see a so-called 'Labour government' presiding over this 'rape' of what we have all collectively invested in, built up and relied upon over the years.

One might almost (but not quite) forgive the Tories of their past crimes as they are made up of chinless wonders like Cameron, Johnson and that idiot Redwood. People who don't seem to have any connection whatsoever with real people living real lives and people who will only ever know the cost of everthing and the value of nothing. You just have to look at Conway's offspring for an insight of what their values and aspirations are (see here if you've forgotten).

For Labour, given their roots and history, this is indeed a deep, deep betrayal of the working people of this country and only serves to confirm that Blairism is the new Thatcherism and that Brown hasn't the intestinal fortitude to do something about it.