I REMEMBER when a ten bob postal order on your birthday left you feeling like a wealthy man, but now all it would buy you is a second class stamp.

I doubt, however, that the cost of postage is responsible for its decline, rather it’s more likely the result of it.

When I was first elected I could expect at least 20 proper letters from constituents per day, now I often won’t get any at all. Instead I get 80 emails. The world has changed and we have to face realities and accommodate the changes, or face extinction.

This is as true for the Royal Mail as it for any other institution.

The post has been in steep and steady decline for years.

There is, however, a growth business available to replace it. As the popularity of internet shopping has risen remorselessly, so has the need to deliver the products that are being purchased electronically.

This is a lucrative trade but it will become increasingly competitive and sophisticated.

To be successful the Royal Mail will need to invest heavily in order to develop a network that will deliver parcels when it is convenient for customers to be at home expecting to receive them. People simply won’t put up with the inconvenience of travelling to distant depots with restricted opening times because they weren’t at home when a parcel was delivered.

The sums that Royal Mail will need to invest are simply not to be had in the public sector and it is unfair to expect hard pressed taxpayers to bear the cost. A privatised Royal Mail will have access to capital markets on the same basis as every other successful commercial undertaking.

The daily universal delivery at a standard rate (and controlled by a price regulator) will be unaffected because it is enshrined in law – only Parliament can change it, and we aren’t going to.

I anticipate that most of the shares will be sold to large institutions because the minimum entry level for purchasing any will be £750, which will not be something most savers can afford.

But, even if the pension funds and institutional investors buy up the lion’s share of the business, fully ten per cent of it is going to be given to the employees.

Add that to a pay deal currently on the table for a staggering 8.6 per cent and you could be forgiven for thinking that industrial harmony would break out.

On the contrary, the unions are opposed to privatisation and they are balloting for strike action just before Christmas. Is there no end to the stupidity of some people?

Do they really think that jobs will long survive while letters become increasingly rare and the parcel business is cornered by competitors able to invest, while Royal Mail – stuck in the public sector – is denied that vital investment?

We’ve seen this happen again and again over years of industrial decline as foreign investors captured our markets because our enterprises –in thrall to the unions – failed to invest and renew. Some people just never learn.