Let's hear it for Billy Hayes!

This piece on the BBC website says it all. Gordon Brown, a LABOUR Prime Minister, crying crocodile tears over the predicament of Royal Mail and begging philanthropic venture capitalists to bail him out. SORRY?????????? When he can find BILLIONS for the PRIVATE SECTOR BANKS - he can't find the investment necessary to ensure a modern, responsive and competitive Royal Mail? He chats about losing 7-8% a year, doesn't he see the irony against the losses of RBS, to name but one? He chats about losing 7-8% a year, with no notion of the public service nature of the Royal Mail. ER.............last time I looked the police service were losing 100% per year. Social Services...........100% per year. Education...........100% per year. What percentage does the subsidy to the rail companies amount to? How much are they "losing"?

There is an acceptance in this country that if you want a universal service, be that postal, transport or in the past telephone............you HAVE to subsidise it.

So, in my view Billy Hayes had it spot on "The Royal Bank of Scotland is on the verge of being nationalised and we've got the situation where they are suggesting Royal Mail should be privatised and flogged to a foreign multinational".

Peter Mandleson, he of frequent financial scandals, may fool some of the people some of the time, but on this he is certainly not going to fool all of the people all of the time. Let's hope this finally proves his undoing.

Peter.........Billy? I know who I think has this country's best interests at heart.