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Post Office scraps home deliveries

Santa will tomorrow visit millions of homes around the globe spreading Xmas joy with his traditional delivery of presents and good cheer. But while there will be gifts under the tree, the doormat will be sadly bare.

For Consignia, the company which operates The Post Office, has announced that it will no longer make home deliveries. Instead, it will concentrate on its "core business", managers have stated.

The shock move, which many industry pundits saw as inevitable, will mean that householders will be presented with a stark choice: pay £5,000 per year for a guaranteed delivery (normally within 4–6 weeks of posting), or collect the mail in person from the sorting office.

A spokesperson for Consignia told The Rockall Times: "In these troubled economic times, we need to get back to what we do best — lining shareholders pockets and paying extravagant management salaries. This sort of thing doesn't come cheap, so I'm afraid we won't be able to provide any sort of service whatsoever."

The government has confirmed that Consignia will continue to benefit from the sort of arrangement which saw Railtrack operate as a private company while reaping all of the benefits of a nationalised organisation. "It's only fair that people who risk their life savings by investing them in privatised companies should be protected by the taxpayer should things not work out," one minister told us. "That's the way capitalism works."

By way of affirmation of this "special relationship", the government has granted Consignia further concessions. It will have the right to levy a storage charge on uncollected mail, enforceable by law. And if Consignia meets government targets for successfully not delivering a single letter on time anywhere in the UK, it will attract substantial performance benefits.

Postal workers' unions have reacted with predictable anger at the announcement that the new plans will cost thousands their jobs. A union representative said: "My members are instrumental in ensuring that a letter posted to an address two miles away does not arrive for three weeks having been diverted to a sorting office at the other end of the country. This is a poor way to repay people for years of loyal service."

The Home Office has, however, offered those facing the axe a possible lifeline. It has drafted plans to retrain posties as civilian warders in a bid to combat escalating crime. "It makes perfect sense," said a leading escalating crime expert. "After all, these men and women have intimate knowledge of their local area, and are noted for an ideal mix of surliness and aggression. If armed, they could become our front line in the war against black-on-black drug violence."

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