A second class service (From The Northern Echo)

A second class service

5:29pm Wednesday 15th February 2012 in Harry Mead By Harry Mead, Columnist

THOUGH Britain’s posties, braving all weathers and hostile pets, and these days grossly burdened with junk mail, usually still get our vote, the Post Office no longer commands the general admiration it enjoyed until a generation or so ago.

Collections are earlier, deliveries later, at my home from before breakfast to mid-morning and sometimes approaching noon. My wife and I daren’t risk sending anything of value, or what might be thought to have value, to our daughter in London, whose post passes through the Mount Pleasant sorting office, notorious for thefts.

Yet under current proposals, the cost of a second class stamp is set to rise over seven years from 36p up to 55p. No limit will be placed on the cost of either a first class stamp, already 46p, or sending large letters and parcels even just second class.

Against that alarming backdrop it has emerged that Moya Greene, chief executive of Royal Mail (heard of her? Me neither) stands to collect a bonus of £142,000 on top of her £498,000 salary.

It seems that in our public services, as in banking, it is now accepted that top people can’t be expected to exert themselves fully in return for their salary, however large. A corollary is that they take no pride in their work, which would otherwise drive them to do their very best.

Meanwhile, the revelation that the bonus culture now contaminates our public services will probably lead to a finger being pointed at the Tory-led Coalition. And indeed it was a Tory government that bears the blame. But it called itself Labour, under Gordon Brown, adopting the thin disguise handed him by Tony Blair.

A HARK back even further. Celebrating its 25th anniversary Middlesbrough-based pawnbrokers Ramsdens plans to open a further 30 stores, lifting its total to 92. Let’s trust the bosses drink a grateful toast to Margaret Thatcher.

Ramsden’s foundation year, 1987, saw the fruits of Thatcherism ripening nicely, perhaps even going rotten. My thumbnail summary of her truly seismic reign has always been this: she put beggars and pawnbrokers back on Britain’s streets. A coda is that, before leaving, she took care to boost the Prime Minister’s pension.

APRIL 1 isn’t far distant now. It’s a good time to watch out for news items which, if published on April Fool’s Day, would be taken by most people as spoofs. But the more sophisticated among us would recognise them as genuine because they simply could not be made up. Here’s one from last weekend: in a London pilot scheme, criminals convicted of serious drink-related offences are to be fitted with “sobriety bracelets”.

The electronic tags will monitor their alcohol intake, and a wearer found to have been drinking will be arrested. Scarcely a day goes by without something equally improbable being reported.

DON’T you grow tired of the endless film industry awards? Recently, I saw on television The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, one of the best films I’ve ever come across, about how the son of the commandant of a German concentration camp accidentally ended up in the gas chamber with a Jewish boy he had secretly befriended. Its climax was almost too unbearable to watch. But I’d never heard of the film, and none of its actors were famous.

Nuff said.