Royal Mail has a disastrous, feudalistic and fundamentally hostile attitude to its dwindling workforce. Told by the government almost a decade ago to get its house in order over modernisation and labour relations, it has relentlessly extended shift hours and the proportion of working time out delivering, overridden union agreements on overtime payments and manufactured a massive black hole in its pension fund.

Is it any wonder that postal workers are at the end of their tether and in mortal fear of their jobs and livelihoods? Of course, their industry is dead on its feet as so few people send letters these days. The only postal sector in expansion is the parcels division, delivering all the stuff people order on the internet, and that was hived off from Royal Mail long ago.

The only ray of light to emerge from the destruction of the coalmining industry a quarter of a century ago was that some (far too few) ex-miners managed to retrain. I wonder what prospects there might be for sacked postal workers? Is their only opening likely to be a nasty, capitalistic, exploitative overseas shyster outfit such as DHL?