SOS for the PO

In the next few hours the unelected House of Lords will vote on the Government's Royal Mail privatisation proposal, and the Bill will then be sent to MPs in the Commons.

Recently the Communications Workers Union (CWU) commissioned the independent polling firm ICM to ask voters how they felt about the Royal Mail. They found that three quarters of the British people do not want our post to be sold and that voters think the sale would break a key Labour election manifesto promise.

The House of Lords should read the ICM poll very carefully - 27% of those polled say they are less likely to vote for their current MP if they back the proposal to sell a 30% stake in the business. This figure rises to 36% for Labour supporters.

The polling is really clear. The public wants the Government listen to voters and reconsider their plans.

Last week the Royal Mail announced a £321 million profit. So Royal Mail is a profitable going concern - and everything must be done to avoid the job cuts and service cuts that TNT or a private equity owner would bring.

The ICM poll showed that people rightly thought that services could suffer whilst prices rise under a Royal Mail controlled by a private company like TNT.

The Green Party is against privitisation of the Post office and all Public Services. We would scrap the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and fund public services properly.

Please support the CWU’s campaign against Post Office privitisation by signing their petition at:

http://post.cwu.org/nosale