Sir, You rightly report a ‘sense of betrayal’ at the decision to close 49 post offices in the West Midlands, including Seisdon and Codsall Wood.
The closure of these post offices is of course shocking and unnecessary. The question is, however, why Royal Mail was transformed in less than a decade from a reasonably sufficient and profitable organisation which was part of our national life to a loss-making business struggling for survival?
The cause of this strange transformation was actually a series of EU Directives which have the specific aim of undermining national postal services and introducing an EU-wide postal service. The EU dislikes national organisations because they are part of the fabric of national member-states which the EU wants to make less and less relevant.
Further, private companies can now demand that Royal Mail handles their post on their behalf at up to nine pence a packet cheaper than 2nd class charges. To make matters worse, the government has taken other business, such as payment of pensions into bank accounts, and issuing TV licences, away from post offices.
In other words, Royal Mail and the post offices were set up to fail. West Midland MP’s and councillors who so loudly lament the loss of local offices have access to this information. If they are doing their job properly they know, or should know, about these Directives.
Why are they so silent about the central role of the EU in the dismemberment of Royal Mail and in post office closures? Presumably they do not want the public to know too much about the antisocial and profoundly undemocratic nature of the European Union.
Mike Lynch, Suckling Green Lane, Codsall, Wolverhampton.
