Post in Further erosion of postal service

May 04 12:23 UTC

Julia, I have read your post on Central, South and Western about Post
Office closures, and I have to say that even for me, as a euro-
skeptic Lib Dem (a rare breed indeed) I find it all very overblown.

That Europe wants a postal and delivery network open to competition
is not a sign of further erosion, it is key to the idea of the Common
Market even you would acknowledge we joined.  Why should postal
services be a protected monopoly when no other of the main means of
communication - telephone and electronic - are.

If you live on Lewis you must accept that communication with the rest
of the world, by car, by post, by phone, by internet is going to be
that little bit less convenient and quite probably more expensive
than in urban UK.

Also, Post Office closures are little if anything to do with this
open competition policy.  They're due to a lack of innovation by the
Post Office itself.  They could, for example, rather than themselves
remaining a Royal Mail monopoly network of offices, have allowed sub-
postmasters to innovate - imagine an office service where all the
competing delivery networks could pick up and deliver to for example,
alongside other things like more money transfer facilities and so
on.  Indeed, Lib Dem Post Office policy is just that - to demerge
Royal Mail and the Post Office and allow the Post Office to
innovate.  Post Office Counters Ltd could then become a comprehensive
network of multi-service delivery and collection agents - an access
point into the newly emerging commercial scene for everyone.

Now, I happen to think that the delivery network, like the internet,
is going to be a crucial vehicle for ensuring a level playing field
in access to new ways of doing business, but the way to achieve that
is to be ruthless in eradicating monopolies and cartels rather than
in protecting a declining mechanism of communication.

My euro-skepticism centers around whether the UK can be a more
completely free-trade liberal country inside or outside of Europe.
At the moment that question remains in the balance, though with the
accession of more economically liberal new countries there is greater
hope that Europe can become genuinely free-trade rather than being
dominated by what seems the older, more protectionist original EEC
crowd.  But to me, wanting out of Europe to retreat into some
protectionist nightmare would be the worst of all worlds.

Post Office closures, whether under the previous Tory government or
this one, are a clear failure of UK governments to adapt to a
competitive, globalized world.  And protectionism breeds poverty.