Royal Mail’s first-class stamp delivered me an appalling third-rate service – Polly Hudson

Only 73% of first-class mail gets there the next day – but my parcel took 18 days to cross London, says Polly Hudson

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem like much. This country feels like it’s going to pot in too many ways to count, so does it really matter your post is arriving late?

Now, because clearly it matters a lot, Ofcom are taking some time off fielding complaints about Amanda Holden’s Britain’s Got Talent outfits to investigate Royal Mail instead.

They’ve failed to deliver mail on time, with only 73% of first-class post arriving the next day, instead of their 93% target. Personally, I’m stunned it’s even as much as 73%.

I recently sent a birthday present from one side of London to the other, posting it a week before it needed to arrive, just in case. It took a ludicrous 18 days to get there, missing the date entirely.

I checked it on a daily basis, painfully inputting the code of nine million tiny letters and numbers into the Royal Mail website’s tracking page, only to be informed that no information could be supplied until a delivery attempt had been made.

They could only tell me when it would be delivered after it had been delivered.

Like a dog awaiting the arrival of a bone, I called Royal Mail customer services, and was on hold for over half an hour. When I eventually managed to get through to a human being, I explained my frustration at a package only being sent across the same city taking so long. The woman sympathised and agreed I could have walked there quicker.

However, incredibly, she claimed that first class isn’t a measure of speed – it doesn’t mean that it’s any quicker than second class.

What?! Perhaps she was trying to make my brain explode so I’d hang up and leave her alone. She added that although most items sent first class will arrive the next day, Royal Mail are only obligated to ensure they turn up within 10 days. If I wanted next-day delivery ­guaranteed, I should have paid extra for it.

A first-class stamp currently costs a whopping £1.10. I’d sent a parcel so coughed up eight times that, but evidently that still wasn’t enough. Royal Mail boss Simon Thompson recently admitted that package deliveries are prioritised over letters, but not in this case apparently.

Of course, sentimental post like mine isn’t even the half of it – life-saving surgery and court dates are being missed because of mail which has turned up too late. And the worst affected are the digitally excluded: people who aren’t online, which usually means the elderly and those living in poverty.

But also, let’s actually not discount the importance of ­sentimental post too – receiving birthday greetings, and a handwritten letter or postcard will always brighten someone’s day in a way no text ever could. Less and less people send them now as it is – if we have no faith they’ll arrive, soon no one will bother.

Postal workers have taken strike action over the last 12 months, but Royal Mail have missed their targets for four out of the last five years, so putting the blame on that is inaccurate and unfair. My postman, Gary, has gone above and beyond many times, walking miles to make sure our street still got deliveries during the pandemic.

The staff aren’t the problem.

A decade ago, Royal Mail became a private company. In America, where the mail service hasn’t been privatised, it’s still working just fine.

We need to put the postie back on the public payroll. Nationalise this essential service once again, so it becomes one of the increasingly few parts of modern life we can rely on.