The (Conservative) English government goes where not even the late Margaret Thatcher had gone: in fact, yesterday she announced that she would want to privatize, through the sale of at least 51% of the shares, the national postal service, the historic Royal Mail. But Labor has already risen up: although the plan provides for the transfer of shares to employees and the possibility of popular shareholding, the unions in fact accuse the attempt to carry out a privatization that not even the Iron Lady had ever dared to think about.
It will be because the Iron Lady had already privatized most of the public companies (from the railways to utilities), it will be because the growth of online services has made traditional mail less essential, but the step, not appreciated by the left but not by the libdems who instead approve the initiative, seems an opportunity to allow the company to have more funding and return idle. As has already happened in Germany with Deutsche Post, and as could soon happen in Italy for Poste Italiane, a still completely public company.
