Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

“Many workers – particularly in the public sector – are facing pay freezes, compulsory redundancies and even, in the case of Unite members at British Airways, the prospect of pay cuts.  We feel that the proposed deal for our Royal Mail members compares extremely well.”
- a spokesman from the Communication Workers Union, after it was announced [...]

Dear Peter Mandelson,
As we approach Christmas, there is plenty to be happy about – not least having a few days off work and reading about more Labour infighting in the press.  Rumours are flying around yet again, not only about whether Brown will survive until the election but whether you will survive as well.
First we had signs [...]

Dear British Airways cabin crew,
Obviously festive spirit is in short supply amongst you lot at the moment.  Yesterday it was announced that Unite union members have voted for a 12-day strike over Christmas and the New Year, throwing the holiday plans of nearly 1 million British Airways passengers into chaos.  It appears that common sense among [...]

“Unless there is sufficient evidence of a change in management’s attitude, local agreements being reached and significant progress towards a full and final agreement, then we will have no alternative other than to return to strike action before Christmas.”
- Billy Hayes, the Communication Workers Union general secretary, written to his members as the postal workers [...]

“We don’t apologise for having influence and power. But that power is exercised quite sparingly.”
- Billy Hayes, leader of the Communication Workers Union that represents Post Office workers. The first 24-hour national strike on Thursday, which comes after a series of regional walkouts, will involve mail centre staff and drivers. In Hayes’s interview with the [...]

“Short of a grassroots campaign among the turkey community calling for all our Christmases to come early it’s hard to think of a more wilfully self-destructive act than the decision by postal workers to go on strike and thus ensure that all our presents actually come sometime in February. I wonder if the guys at [...]

“I Googled postal strikes yesterday and what do you think came up straight away? An advert for DHL with the strapline ‘We are not on strike’.”
- Andrew Hawkins, chief executive of ComRes, a Westminster-based market research organisation.  Some firms have begun turning to the Royal Mail’s private sector rivals as the regional action has spread [...]

Dear readers,
When it comes to postal strikes, there are some things that I can just about put up with:
1. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) claims to be happy with modernisation of the postal service, even though it is dragging this country back to the dark ages through strike action.
2. The CWU complains about cuts to [...]

1. The Communication Workers Union’s (CWU) national leadership offered Royal Mail a three-month moratorium on industrial action in return for a suspension of imposed changes.  How very generous of them.  Royal Mail rejected this suggestion, only for the CWU’s London divisional rep Mark Palfrey to later say: “Our members are not going to allow Royal Mail to keep [...]

Dear Ken Clarke,
As I predicted a little while ago, your return to the Shadow Cabinet has pushed Alan Duncan out of the picture.  In the last letter I wrote to Alan Duncan, I explained to him why his performance as Shadow Business Secretary was simply unacceptable as he had done little more than give quotes to newspapers [...]

Dear John Hutton,
How long can this keep going on for?  What exactly are you trying to achieve?  The Post Office has already been cut to pieces and now the mail regulator Postcomm is suggesting that we shouldn’t get post on Saturdays and that first-class deliveries don’t have to arrive the next day?  No doubt you [...]

Dear Alan Duncan,
Well done on an organised campaign against Post Office closures.  The rebellion of 20 or so Labour MPs is a nasty jab in the ribs for Gordon Brown and he won’t easily forget it.  However, what troubles me is that the Post Office represents one of those issues where the Conservatives have yet [...]

Dear Royal Mail,
Your managers must clearly be living in a bottomless pit, because otherwise they would have noticed that over the past few years online shopping has become increasingly popular.  With the extremely cold weather (by British standards, anyway) that we’ve had for the last couple of weeks, it was blindingly obvious that Christmas shopping [...]

Dear Postal Workers,
You really are a bit dense, aren’t you.  I don’t consider myself to be an expert on matters concerning the Post Office, but I do know that financially it is in freefall at the moment.  What’s more, your strike action really isn’t going to help much.
Job security is something that most people cherish, [...]