Postal Order

Amid the chaos at the Royal Mail, remember that it was privatised by the under-scrutinised Liberal Democrats. The Business Secretary on every day of the Coalition was Vince Cable, and the Postal Affairs Minister under him at the point of privatisation was Ed Davey. Oh, the comments that I used to have to reject when I mentioned that the Post Office had had to be cut out of the Royal Mail in 2011 so that the Royal Mail could be privatised, because the City had known, even then, about Horizon, and would have refused to have handled the sale, much less bought the shares. On 24 May 2024, that was confirmed in open court.

Tony Blair knew about Horizon in 1998, but Peter Mandelson made him go through with it. In 2009, 10 years into Horizon, Mandelson tried to offload 30 per cent of the undivided Royal Mail. The eventual privatisation made vast profits for the 16 priority investors, which had been chosen because they were seen as stable and long-term. 12 sold out within weeks. One such, which secured £36 million in six months, was Lansdowne Partners, and one of those Partners was Peter Davies, who had been best man at the first, and then only, wedding of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.

Osborne and Mandelson were both shortlisted for the position of Ambassador to the United States, but it was on his way home from Osborne's residence that Mandelson was photographed in November urinating in the street. Mandelson's clearly close friend, Osborne, married again in 2023, and the guests included his close friend and podcast partner, Ed Balls, with Balls's wife, Yvette Cooper. Cooper's candidate at Gorton and Denton has been endorsed by Cable. A vote for that candidate would be a vote for all of this. And a whole lot more.