Responding to the Royal Mail’s announcement that families will soon be able to send care parcels free of charge to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ming Campbell said:
“I am pleased that families can now send care parcels free of charge to their loved ones serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. This small step may make an enormous difference to the morale of those fighting in these difficult deployments.
“The Ministry of Defence must now work with the Royal Mail to ensure that the free parcel service is maintained after Christmas.”
Whilst I applaud Mr Campbells campaign to get supplies and ‘comforts’ to the troops in Iraq/Afghanistan etc, to single out the Royal Mail is unfair and inappropriate. As a company we are now in the grip of full competition, but we are not allowed to compete on a level playing field, we HAVE to carry competitors mail at a fraction of the cost that we would charge our customers, thus subsidising private business at our (the taxpayers) expense, if it is a level playing field, surely the likes of TNT, UK Mail etc should be collecting, sorting and delivering their own mail, at their expense, instead of passing the difficult and/or expensive items on to the Royal Mail to deliver at a fraction of the cost. If the Royal Mail is to deliver items free to troops abroad, surely TNT etc should ALSO have to carry these items if asked, for nothing, or is this ANOTHER case of Post Office bashing? We would dearly love to provide the public service we used to, but successive interference by the Govt. and an over zealous and too pawerful watchdog have left us on our knees, an incompetent management and a Govt willing to see us decimated will ensure that in the future, parcels delivered to troops abroad will have to be carried by courier, at outrageous expense purely because there will be no Post Office to carry them. 12 years as a postman have shown me how badly the industry is suffering…