Here is an image from 1838 tweaked for the modern Royal Mail, the planned* strike and the increasingly regal Lord Mandelson. There is some useful context  to issues around the service and the industrial dispute available from the BBC. Billy Hayes, leader of the Communication Workers Union has a public say in the Mirror and the FT looks at the bigger picture and the value of the Mail as a saleable asset after the next election.

If it wasn’t the ‘Royal’ Mail does anyone think the organisation would still be in public hands after the past thirty years of privatisations?

* (at time of writing)