Royal Mail’s long road from Tudor technocrat to Czech Sphinx

Eleven years ago, before the privatisation of Royal Mail, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity lobbed a small incendiary into the Square Mile. According to Graham Simpson, Vince Cable, the business secretary leading the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s sell-off, had got it disastrously wrong.

It was not because the privatisation of a national strategic asset encumbered by a universal service obligation, the introduction of postal competition and a militant trade union would be a disaster. Quite the reverse. Quest’s modelling suggested that the government was vastly underappreciating both the fundamental financial value of the business and demand for its shares.

Over the next few years Simpson was proved right, but the subsequent stock market rollercoaster brought Royal Mail to a point that it can’t deliver the post