Tag Archives: royal mail

Mark Pack

The weird farce of Royal Mail parcel deliveries

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th October 2009 - 1:55 pm

Now, when I say parcel deliveries, you might think that this story involves parcels or indeed deliveries. If only.

I was already familiar with the problem in many areas of people getting “Sorry you were out” cards through the letterbox, saying the Royal Mail had tried to deliver a parcel, even though they were firmly sat at home at the time.

I’d always thought this was a case of rushed staff wanting to cut corners near the end of their rounds by sticking a few cards through letterboxes without knocking on the door.

The truth though is far stranger. For in many cases …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 11 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 9 October 2009

By Helen Duffett | Fri 9th October 2009 - 12:07 pm

2 Big Stories

Widely questioned as being rather premature, and merited more by vision than achievements so far, President Obama’s award is making the headlines this morning:
Barack Obama wins 2009 Nobel peace prize (Telegraph)

Less than a year after taking office, Mr Obama won the prestigious award after calling for worldwide disarmament.

He had also worked to restart the stalled Middle East peace process since taking office in January.

In an announcement in Oslo, he was honoured “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thorbjoern Jagland said.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as (Mr) Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said.

“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

The committee said it attached special importance to Mr Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Royal Mail strike – Christmas come early?
And not in a good way…

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , , and | 4 Comments
Tom Watson

Tom Watson writes … on the Royal Mail and postcodes

By Tom Watson | Fri 9th October 2009 - 9:10 am

It’s not often that The Voice invites MPs from other parties to do a guest post, but in this case we’ve asked Tom Watson as the postcode issue is one he took a close interest in as a minister and it is an issue that cuts across parties.

The recent decision by Royal Mail to close down the Ernestmarples.com web site shows us how our public institutions are woefully unprepared to seize the new opportunities created by the internet.

Ermenmarples.com is a web site that enables other sites to provide postcode driven, citizen focused web services on a not-for-profit basis. Sites like …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , and | 16 Comments
Dominic Hargreaves

Royal Mail, postcode data and what you can do

By Dominic Hargreaves | Thu 8th October 2009 - 11:00 pm

With the recent takedown of the postcode geocoding API provided by Ernest Marples Ltd, there has been discussion of other ways to get hold of postcode data without paying prohibitive licence fees to Royal Mail. One solution is to collect the data from scratch, without using existing sources that are derived from the Royal Mail licensed database. This has at least some chance of avoiding the infringement of Royal Mail’s intellectual property rights.

There are several such projects already in existence. The oldest is Free The Postcode which invites visitors to collect the location of a postcode by visiting a location and recording the latitude and longitude of its …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Postcode campaign gears up to save popular web services

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th October 2009 - 7:56 pm

A range of popular websites, providing useful services such as information on local job vacancies and planning applications, have been closed down following the Royal Mail’s decision to crack down on the use they made of its postcode address database.

As Alex blogged previously:

With postcodes so increasingly important to national life, it’s ridiculous that they are not public data that is, as a minimum, free to use for non-profit organisations.

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Posted in LDV campaigns | Also tagged , , , and | 6 Comments
Alex Foster

Royal Mail shut down useful community websites

By Alex Foster | Mon 5th October 2009 - 10:13 pm

Last month at conference, in two of our conference fringes, speakers highlighted useful online services set to revolutionise politics.

At our first fringe, “Campaigning after Rennard,” James Graham thought that TheStraightChoice (reviewed by LDV here), a website that allows members of the public to upload the leaflets they have received through their letterbox, had the potential to revolutionise politics. No more would politicos be able to put out close-to-the-knuckle material in relative obscurity. From now on, James argued, we’d all have to assume that at least one blogger would read our leaflet, and at least one journalist …

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Posted in News and Online politics | Also tagged | 14 Comments
Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 7 July 2009

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th July 2009 - 12:00 pm

2 3 Big Stories

US and Russia agree nuclear cuts

The BBC reports:

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have reached an outline agreement to cut back their nations’ stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The “joint understanding” signed in Moscow would see reductions of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 each within seven years of a new treaty. The accord would replace the 1991 Start I treaty, which expires in December.

Nick Clegg welcomed the announcement:

This decision is a great moment and a promising step ahead of next year’s NPT talks. Britain must now play our own part

…

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 2 July 2009

By Helen Duffett | Thu 2nd July 2009 - 9:18 am

2 Big Stories

The news has a state vs public ownership flavour at the moment:

Passengers to pay price for crisis on the railways
“A series of big projects are in grave doubt after the collapse of the highest-earning franchise exposed a deepening hole in the rail budget.

National Express East Coast is to be renationalised after the parent company refused to honour a pledge to pay the Department for Transport £1.4 billion in the years to 2015.

The DfT will have to accept a much lower sum when it puts the franchise back out to tender and is likely to be …

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , and | Leave a comment
The Voice

Pugh sticks up for posties sacked for not wearing cycle helmets

By The Voice | Sat 27th June 2009 - 10:45 am

The Express has the story:

ROYAL Mail bosses were branded draconian yesterday after sacking three postmen in a week – for not wearing cycle helmets. They were accused of adhering rigidly to ­guidelines to cut staff and slash costs ahead of ­privatisation. Many others also face disciplinary action ­following the clampdown in Southport, Merseyside. Several have launched an appeal to be re-instated. Father-of-two David Smith was dismissed after 17 years.

Southport Lib Dem MP John Pugh believes the posties have been treated unfairly:

The only one at risk for not wearing a helmet is the postman himself – so why is

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 11 Comments
The Voice

Lib Dems call for Post Office restrictions to be lifted to save our Post Offices

By The Voice | Sun 10th December 2006 - 1:00 pm

Commenting on reports that half the country’s post offices might be shut, Liberal Democrat Shadow DTI Secretary Edward Davey MP said:

Ministers’ claims that post offices must close in their thousands are simply wrong.

These closures have been Government driven as ministers have taken away businesses like pensions, TV licences and passports.

Post offices can be viable if they are set free from Royal Mail restrictions on who they can trade with and given investment boosts to embrace new technologies and fresh business ideas.

We need less buck passing from ministers and more determination to save our post offices which are so crucial

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 6 Comments
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