Royal Mail doomed

It's been one week since my motor was clamped and towed, and I'm still no closer to getting my money back.

Here's a quick recap for those of you that didn't read the original post:

• The company that runs our parking permits changed their parking patrol company and sent out new permits in the post
• I never received my new permit (or notification that their was a new patrol company)
• The new patrol company clamped and towed my car and charged me £420
• The management company is denying liability saying that it sent letters
  
• I have lodged an appeal with the towing company

The entire problem hinges on the fact that I never received a notification from the management company and never received new parking permits.

Repeat: I never received the letters or permits!!!!

I put it to you, people of the blogosphere, that I am being fucked up the arse against my will.

The thing is, maybe the management company did send me the letter and a new permit, maybe they're actually telling the truth... difficult to comprehend I appreciate, but maybe it was not they that fucked up, maybe it was The Royal Mail.

Ahhh, the good old Royal Mail. Like the BBC and NHS, the Royal Mail is something that we Brits can be rightly proud of, only right now, it's not...

Generally speaking, I think the Royal Mail do quite a good job, a next day national postal delivery service is an awesome achievement. I can post a letter on Monday morning with a 39p stamp and Mum will get it up in Lincoln the following morning.

Unfortunately for the Royal Mail the internet came along and then next day delivery was deemed too slow by most. Email has rendered the humble letter and envelope combination pretty much obsolete. Snail mail is set to become a thing of the past.

Well, it's pretty much obsolete unless you're a residents association managment company sending our new parking permits, then you rely uppon it entirely, and when it lets you down, the very people who pay for you to manage their accomodation end up getting shafted for £420.

Thanks to the march of progress and technology, the Royal Mail is losing money hand over fist, and as a consequence the powers that be are attempting to 'modernise' the system and working practices. Technology and modernisation are two words that strike fear into the hearts of union men. And when fear strikes, so do union men!

Non-UK residents are probably blissfully unaware that there have been a series of Royal Mail strikes in recent times. So it's not inconceivable that my letters and permits have gone astray along with millions of other letters as a direct result of the strikes. Even when the Royal Mail isn't on strike it is still prone to the odd lapse. So, in face of my missing permits and more pointedly my missing £420, my sympathy for the striking mail workers is wearing thin.

Even so, news that the Royal Mail says it will hire 30,000 temporary workers to break the strike fills my heart with dread. One might expect this of a privately held company, but the Royal Mail is state-owned.

Repeat: The Labour party is going to crush a strike action by hiring in scabs.

If Arthur Scargill was dead, he'd be turning in his grave.

As regular readers will know, I am a socialist at heart, so the idea that a Labour government is hoping to smash a strike being held by the workers of a state-owned company is abhorant. That said, £420 is a lot of money to me, and if these new workers can help get the Royal Mail get back on track, then all the better.

Ordinarily, I would think it inconceivable that the Royal Mail, or anyone else for that matter, could just hire 30,000 people at the drop of a hat. Fortunately, though, thanks to the credit crunch, unemployment figures are rising fast and there's a hungry workforce waiting in the wings.

I really don't know where to stand on this one readers. They say history repeats itself. In the 1970s, the Labour government, under Heath, was brought to its knees by the unions, ushering in Margaret Thatcher. She saw the unions as a threat, and so when the miners went on strike in '84, she sat it out, destroying the coal industy and thousands of lives in the process. Crucially, though, with the trades union movement stymied, she and later Tory governments stayed in power until 1997.

Fast forward 12 years, the country is up shit creek again and the unions are kicking off. If Brown et al crush the mail workers' strike, will that save us all from David Cameron? It's doubtful, let's be honest,but it could pave the way for one Barry Newsdesk esq to reclaim his missing £420.

A little bit of politics.

Barrington Newsdeskington over and out