Stamp Duty Raised

The price of a first class stamp is rising by 2 pence to 32 pence. There has been uproar from watchdog (or bulldog?) Postcomm that such a hike is unjust and makes sending letters pricey.

But hang on a minute... As an experiment let’s give Nigel Stapleton (chairman of Postcomm) 32 pence, a pair of blue shorts and a letter and see how far he gets delivering it.

The Royal Mail (RM) letter postal service must surely represent the lowest-priced way to get a physical document across the country. Even if RM increased the cost of a stamp to 45p surely this wouldn’t be asking too much?

We can also mostly trust RM. How about the dodgy private postal company that threw all their post in a skip? (See here).

To keep the tight bastards happy(ish) perhaps the future of mail delivery is using variable rates. Sending post from London to London at 20 pence and London to Edinburgh at 50 pence? But complicating the system will only bring in other costs. Often simplicity is the best option.