Royal Mail eager to wrap up changes | Business

Correction. Royal Mail is not, after all, a hapless throwback, hobbled by 1970s-style industrial relations, strait-jacketed by the obligation to serve every address in Britain six days a week, weighed down by antediluvian working practices and mismanaged by a board incapable of hiring and keeping a decent chief executive.

It is in fact a company of the future, brilliantly positioned to harness one of the most potent forces in modern-day consumer behaviour, the shift to online shopping and home delivery.

The market swung away from vision A towards vision B after Royal Mail revealed that its parcel revenues were up by a thumping 33 per cent in the five months to August. Add in some speculation about the intentions of the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky,