Royal Mail delivers poor performance | Business

Daytime telly can finish some careers. So you’d think chief executives would be well tuned-up for their appearances on parliamentlive.tv: the go-to site for grillings from MPs.

Not Simon Thompson. The Royal Mail boss delivered such a shocker last week before members of the business committee that not only has he been invited back for more but told to bring his chairman, Keith Williams: a ratings success, maybe, but not the sort investors want at a strike-riven outfit losing £1 million a day? It had been Thompson’s big chance to explain Royal Mail’s position after 18 days of walkouts by posties in the CWU union. To put it generously, he blew it.

Worse, he’s been recalled because, as the committee chairman Darren Jones spelt out