Sound the last post

FOR 175 years it has been a staple of Scottish life. Through rain, hail or shine, uninterupted by wars, our postmen have delivered the mail to people’s homes six days a week.

Letters and parcels posted at one end of these isles arrive at the other the following morning. It is a world class system, which has been widely envied and copied by others, but never bettered. It is a service which provides a lifeline to remote communities, a friendly face to the housebound, combining the modernity of air, road and rail with the reassuring tramp of Shanks’s pony. So news that the Royal Mail believes this six-day-a-week, anywhere-in-Britain service – the Universal Service Obligation – may be unsustainable i s deeply unwelcome. The firm – recently privatised at a price many believe was carelessly low – says competitors are eating away at its profits by stealing the most lucrative work.

This work – deliveries to Britain’s easily accessible urban areas – subsidises the service offered to more remote communities. Unsurprisingly, the private sector opposition has no interest in snatching the latter. Now Royal Mail has written to industry r e gulator Ofcom demanding it investigate. Ofcom itself doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to act – it may believe that Royal Mail’s annual profits of £671million provide a sufficient cushion to absorb a few unprofitable routes. But act it must. While this newspaper accepts the benefits competition brings to the consumer, in the special case of postal deliveries, this must be balanced with a commitment to nationwide deliveries, six days of the week.