Government blackmailing Royal Mail workers and the public?

[muriel_volestrangler]

This stuff about the Royal Mail pension fund, and part-privatisation, just doesn't make sense to me:

In a letter published by the government, Jane Newell, the chair of trustees of Royal Mail's pension scheme warns the deficit is "significantly larger" than the £5.9bn in the Hooper Review - which called for a minority stake in the business to be sold off.

She said its deficit was likely to rise well in excess of its current £5.9bn should the sale not happen, with potentially "devastating consequences" for the business.

The government has proposed taking over responsibility for the pension scheme as part of the proposed sell-off package.
...
The government says the Royal Mail cannot survive in its current form, due to severe financial constraints and falling demand for sending letters, and needed fresh investment in technology to prosper.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7907179.stm

I just can't see the tie between the pension scheme, and the actual Royal Mail operations, at all. They're not proposing that TNT or anyone else who buys a part of the business puts money into the scheme; that's either going to be the UK taxpayers, or no-one, it seems.

Meanwhile, while they shell out hundreds of billions of government money to stop banks going bust, and contemplate printing money to stop deflation, they insist that the only way to invest in one part of the vital infrastructure of the country is to flog a bit of it off to the Dutch, so that they can take profits from it in the future.

So, Brown's position, to his bankbenchers, is: "vote for privatisation, or I'll put Post Office pensioners into poverty!". He's gone from Stalin, to Mr. Bean, to Tony Soprano. Seems to me they could either 'print money' and give it to the Royal Mail to invest in that technology; or put up the cost of postage a bit (which helps stop deflation) and get the money for it that way. Giving someone the right to take a profit from a basic part of running the country just seems lunatic, especially for a 'Labour' government.

[Albus]

1. Disgraceful. How can we ever vote "Labour" again?

[non sociopath skin]

5. "We"?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Come off it, BD! Even pre-Blair, you would rather have cut your own hand off than vote Labour!!!!

The Skin

[Albus]

6. As I may have asked before...

who is the BD of which you speak?

[emad]

2. Anyone remember Robert Maxwell and the Trinity/MirrorGroup Pension scam?

Smells like something similar to me.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. The government will probably get Tory votes to push this one through

I'll be interested to see what the Lib Dems do in this situation, given the tensions between its neoliberal and social democratic tendencies.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Further explanation of the pension issues

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7909911.stm