Queen's head to disappear from stamps?

[andy at handiwork]

My comment wasn't a dig at you, more an observation on a situation that has long annoyed me; that our politicians, of all hues, are too afraid of the malign influence of someone who cant even vote in this country.

[andy at handiwork]

The first thing to go will be the equality of cost no matter to where in the UK you post something. At present it costs the same to post a letter from London to Birmingham as it does to send it to the Outer Hebrides. I cant imagine a private owner would be too keen on preserving that.

[RoddersUK]

True.

[RoddersUK]

I stand corrected you fucking great twatttt

[RoddersUK]

Cheers Max, pity some one else doesn't.

[RoddersUK]

I think you will find that they are in conjunction with the government on this matter.

[RoddersUK]

Max, I've said it before reference cunts. He aint a cunt, cunts are usefull.

[beutelwolf]

RoddersUK wrote:

> Max, I've said it before reference cunts. He aint a cunt, cunts
> are usefull.
>

You might want to try telp.

[beutelwolf]

andy at handiwork wrote:

> The first thing to go will be the equality of cost no matter to
> where in the UK you post something. At present it costs the
> same to post a letter from London to Birmingham as it does to
> send it to the Outer Hebrides. I cant imagine a private owner
> would be too keen on preserving that.

I can.
For two reasons:
(i) simplicity; currently, people buy stamps at the supermarket, put them on a letter, and post it. With a more complex fee structure lots of them would end up queuing at the post office to ask how much.
(ii) the postal service will remain that: a national service;
so any private owner will go to the government cap-in-hand, saying: we cannot guarantee a postal service at that price to the Outer Hebrides - you have got to subsidise it. Same thing happened with lots of bus services, though subsidies were/are paid at a local level.

[spider]

1. The new provider isn't really going to want to provide a service to the Outer Hebrides, so who cares if people have to queue at Post Offices etc to find the price. Maybe it will encourage them to use another provider.

2. Under the new regime there will no subsidies. I'd think there would be competition laws to preclude this anyway. Royal Mail is not a monopoly supplier, and will not be when it's under private ownership. That means if you subsidise one supplier you'll have to be shown to be fair in offering the same subsidy to all of the providers.

I suppose the government could try and get round it if the area concerned is a Tory constituency but they would be on dangerous ground.

There will be zonal pricing for the social customer.

It will be something different for the big high-volume business customer.

But it's only really the big business customer the new provider will want. They will have no interest in the birthday card from Granny.

Another solution is may be to take the TNT line in Holland, where TNT is the privatised postal service provider. There TNT only provide a delivery in rural areas (no, I didn't know there were rural areas in Holland either), once every other day. That reduces costs in providing services to outlying areas.


Regarding the issue of having the Queen's head on the stamps. If the Queen's head remains on the stamp, isn't she going to be seen as endorsing a commercial company?

If another provider entered the market couldn't they say, "Hang on, why is TNT (or whoever) allowed to use the Queen's head on their stamps, but I can't? Does TNT own the image rights to Ugly Betty?"

I don't think DC and his mates have thought this one through.