Debt-laden Royal Mail is killing letter deliveries by a thousand cuts

Such a fate would greatly undermine the core purpose of the service. As the Greetings Card Association warns, the proposals appear to take the country “one step closer to the dismantling of a postal service that’s affordable and reliable”. 

Some would say it stopped being either of those things some time ago. The price of stamps has rocketed in recent years.

After four increases in just two years, the cost of a first-class stamp has shot up from 85p in 2022 to £1.35 today. 

But has the quality of service improved along with it? The phenomenon of postal deserts, together with fines for failing to meet delivery targets, strongly suggests not. 

Meanwhile, fresh customer horror stories are always around the corner. An exasperated colleague reports that he and his neighbours in rural Surrey regularly experience delays of several weeks to their post. Meanwhile, the roads around his village have become a graveyard for broken down Royal Mail vans temporarily abandoned by posties. 

An even bigger concern, perhaps, is that the savings Royal Mail has previously touted will ultimately either be pocketed by Kretinsky’s EP Group outfit or used to service its ballooning debt burden instead of reviving the company’s fortunes. 

True, Royal Mail’s cost-cutting efforts predate Kretinsky.

But with £2.3bn of additional borrowings to juggle, the urgency to trim overheads is about to intensify markedly. Royal Mail has said that its proposals for reform of the USO would save up to £300m a year, but much of that could be gobbled up by interest payments. 

In which case, would it be unfair to argue that customers are effectively footing at least some of the bill for the takeover? In any case the idea that loading up a seriously struggling business to the eyeballs with billions of pounds of costly new loans will result in a stronger company is obviously profoundly silly. 

It’s not impossible to imagine that one day, this vital UK institution will be better known for delivering fat fees and profits to its owners rather than the service it provides customers.