Gordon Brown has confronted the discontent among Labour MPs about part-privatising Royal Mail head-on by emailing Labour MPs to say that he is 100% behind Peter Mandelson on this..
The union representing most Royal Mail workers, CWU, has responded: "There is no need to seek private funding from outside companies in a joint venture. This would open the floodgates for full-blown, damaging privatisation. Post is a key public and business service..."
Left Labour MP John McDonnell has said: "This is a privatisation beyond what even Thatcher achieved. [It] will result in significant job losses and attacks on the working conditions of postal workers and we will fight these proposals all the way."
And not-so-left, but now out-of-office, Labour MP Peter Hain accused the Government of trying to "fatten the calf" ready for a complete sell-off. He said: "Doesn't it open the door to full-scale privatisation?"
The union is discussing how to respond industrially. And politically, too. The June 2008 CWU conference passed a motion instructing the Executive:
"To launch an immediate unprecedented campaign... to maintain Royal Mail as a 100% publicly owned company... If the government fails to agree to the full terms of this motion by March 2009 then the CWU membership will be balloted on whether they believe the union should fund the Labour Party at the next general election."