A Reassuring Sign of Continuity

Both Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace have expressed concern about a certain aspect of the Government's New Labour policy of privatising the Royal Mail. Of course, there are worries about whether the service will improve in the same way as those services which are occasionally provided by privatised railways and privatised utilities; of course, there are worries about pay, pensions and redundancies; of course, there are worries that the whole thing will turn out to be just another PFI profiteering scam. Fortunately, all these worries are merely the concern of Royal Mail employees and the public. The Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace are much more worried about a matter of genuine national significance; namely, whether the image of a Mrs Elizabeth Windsor of London SW1A, who resides in luxury accommodation at the taxpayers' expense, will remain on the stamps. Ed Davey, the "postal affairs minister" whose Milibloke monicker and smirkogenic job title point up his status as a tuition-fee-debased Liberal Democrat, has reassured all concerned that it will. We can all sleep easy in our beds: the relevant legislation has been amended to prevent whoever buys the Royal Mail from depriving the stamps of their revered eidolon. Ed Davey, who is doubtless, in accordance with the New Politics, assured of a directorship or so in whatever gang of philanthropic efficientisers takes over, said that the amendment is "really a failsafe and I would be astounded if the power ever needs to be used", since the image is "a very valuable and prestigious tradition", and thus will constitute a very valuable and polite façade behind which to carry out the necessary, inevitable, non-ideological and profitable vandalism.