Any sympathy that I have for Royal Mail gets tested each day. As a business in London, our post does not arrive before 12-1pm each day in a decidedly hapless fashion. This has gone on since we moved to our new premises 2 years ago. This means that my team have half the time they could have to open, scan, note and respond to the day’s post. A business like ours tends to get a reasonable amount of post each day from clients, some incredibly important and time sensitive – such as mortgage applications.

Every year the prices go up, the service seems to worsen and to cap it all there was no post on Friday due to strike action, or at least that is what appears to have been the case. Any sense of nostalgia about the Royal Mail is being gradually ebbed away and in my frustration I imagine that privatising the entire thing would make for a better and more competitive service, which seems a pretty easy objective to achieve.

As the Government seem keen introduce a new tax to ensure basic broadband is available everywhere (nothing quite like low targets is there?). I suggest giving everyone a scanner and email connection that can remove the vast majority of mail anyway.