Writing is on the wall for Royal Mail as it raises prices again | Business

If Royal Mail had been invented in 2016 rather than in 1516 there would be no such thing as a letter or a stamp or our quaint pillar boxes. The postal worker would have been a machine.

There would be no arguments either about whether Royal Mail should be forced to deliver six days a week to every far-flung letterbox, a millstone known as its universal service obligation. Instead everyone would be doing what they do now anyway. Businesses and consumers would transact digitally, and friends and family would communicate instantly and electronically by email, text and social media.