DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Unions risk a first-class debacle for the Royal Mail 

The bellicose postal unions may believe they are standing up for oppressed workers against employers out to exploit them.

But their hard-Left leaders should be under no illusion: Any more strikes could collapse the beleaguered Royal Mail – putting the jobs of their very members at risk.

The 500-year-old firm is already teetering on the brink. A wave of walkouts over pay and conditions, especially damaging over Christmas when countless cards and presents went undelivered, have led to eye-watering losses of £1million a day.

Is the Communication Workers Union really unable to grasp the problem?

If it becomes harder for people and businesses to send letters and parcels, they’ll turn to other delivery firms in their droves – further ruining the Royal Mail’s finances.

The union dinosaurs relish the prospect of the Government nationalising the service. But then it would have to compete for funding against other public priorities.

The situation is bleak. But the best solution would be for postal workers to call off their strike – and strive to secure a viable future for the Royal Mail.

Make car thieves pay 

It is not asking the earth. When a crime is committed the police should investigate properly and any culprit identified should be prosecuted.

Should you suffer the misfortune of having your car stolen, however, the very best of luck getting justice.

Only a shocking 2 per cent of vehicle thefts ever result in a suspect being charged.

If the police do not appear to make every effort to solve these incidents – instead of handing out crime numbers for insurance purposes – it is not only dispiriting for victims, it signals to offenders that hotwiring cars has effectively been decriminalised.

Like cracked records, chief constables blame spending cuts. But more money is being poured into policing and thousands of extra officers are being hired.

The truth is, chief constables seem more interested in promoting woke causes or policing perfectly legitimate views online.

When it comes to solving a crime that the public consider a priority, it is scandalous that forces have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Shameless Starmer

‘Labour’s leader, so desperate to get into Downing Street, is acting not out of principle, but political expedience’

Sir Keir Starmer has done the right thing in getting the odious Jeremy Corbyn banned from standing for Labour at the election.

But please, let’s spare him any acclaim. Labour’s leader, so desperate to get into Downing Street, is acting not out of principle, but political expedience.

Sir Keir insists Labour’s interests would be severely damaged if Corbyn was the party’s candidate for Islington North.

Yet no one should forget he twice fought tooth and nail for the toxic Trot to become Britain’s prime minister, even though he was palpably unfit for the highest office.

While other Labour MPs quit the frontbench in disgust, Starmer remained loyal and turned a blind eye to claims of Corbyn’s rampant anti-Semitism, lifelong support for the IRA and ruinous economic policies.

Now he has brutally disowned him. This vividly illustrates Starmer’s hypocrisy.

If he’ll happily betray the man he once glowingly described as a ‘friend’, wouldn’t he betray the public who put him in No10?

As grocery prices soar by record amounts, adding £837 to the annual bills of hard-pressed families, evidence mounts that supermarkets and food giants are cashing in on ‘greedflation’. To rapacious bosses, exploiting high inflation to sneak through inexcusably large price hikes is justified by monster profits. In fact, it is utterly unconscionable. There is no greater champion of capitalism than the Mail. But such sharp practices give the free market a bad name – and its enemies a hefty stick with which to beat it.