Grumpiness, post offices and the decline of common sense...

I am feeling a little concerned that I am turning into a grumpy old man at the age of 37, as I have developed this habit of snarling at newspaper articles and the state of British politics. In a week, when we have had the notion of British identity questioned again, the greed of Barclays exposed and now the future of 3,000 post offices supposedly saved by the very clever government, I cannot help but snarl at the complete shambles it all appears to be.

Heather Wakefield, Head of Local Government for UNISON wrote this week about the fragmentation of the left, suggesting that we will have to wait and see if New Labour has learnt from the failure of market capital. She even dared to suggest that what is emerging is 'socialism for the bosses' and not for society as a whole. I am inclined to agree with her, for the Post Office contract is bordering on the absolute ridiculous. It is beguiling to me:-

1. why is there a contract at all? The Post Office is a public body and the contract is about distributing government benefits to 4.3 million claimants;

2. why would you hand over this public contract to the private sector, as the current contract makes the Post Office £200m profit per year? Furthermore the government closed 2,500 post offices in order to reduce the £4m-a-week subsidy to the Post Office;

3. why would you hand over this contract when it could lead to 3,000 more post office closures?*

4. why would you waste our tax payers money on such a silly contract and then leave all parties non-the-wiser since May 2007?

I am reminded of the quote from the film 'V for Vendetta', "People should not be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of their people". The French goverment knows this very clearly, yet the British government seems less inclined to give way to the British people. Though I somewhat doubt that a British government will ever be afraid of its people, maybe the government may start to listen more. Though I am snarling at the way this contract exists at all in the open market place, I am a little happier that a petition signed by two million people and with 265 MPs from all parties having signed a parliamentary motion calling for the contract to stay with the Post Office; that ministers and special advisors wined and dined by the PayPoint lobby group (main private sector bidder), have seen sense this time.

Out of all of this snarling I hope the Labour Party itself starts to select and push forward candidates not on the basis of their skin colour; whether they have a face for TV or radio; gender or time spent in a think tank; but on what they believe, the life experiences they have had and dare I say it: the content of their character.

Am I grumpy? I think I can claim that title for now. However, as noted by Heather Wakefield: "The obsession with markets and failure to understand the importance of public services for collective wellbeing and a sense of 'belonging', has led to costly, alienating and ineffective mass privatisation."

*Source: unions.