As of last January the UK mail market was fully opened up to competition, allowing access to private operators like TNT and DHL.

Regulator Postcomm created the impression that liberalisation would mean competition and so a cheaper price to consumers. The real picture was somewhat different with private operators only interested in cherry-picking the profitable elements like business mail. There was no interest in delivering residential mail, which is not profitable.

Royal Mail was hit hardest, with its continuing commitment to deliver a universal service made all the more difficult. Previously, the monopoly situation meant that the profitable sections of the business could be used to subsidise less profitable areas like residential deliveries to outlying rural areas. By allowing private companies to pick the profitable elements of the business liberalisation made things more difficult for Royal Mail. As a result they are keener than ever to win profitable business like the junk mail market.

While moves made to stop junk mail may have made Roger Annies popular with Daily Mail readers, he was less so with workmates who recognised the need to win the new business to retain their jobs. Many postal workers detest junk mail deliveries as much as the pubic but they accept it because they know they need the work.

Not surprisingly, the profitable junk mail area is one where the private companies also want to make an impact. So stopping Royal Mail delivering junk mail will achieve nothing beyond giving the work to other companies who will employ whoever they can get and pay the minimum to do the work.

Junk mail is something many people object to on all sorts of grounds but until the demand from the public for this form of advertising dies down there is no chance that it will go away. In the case of Royal Mail there seems to be a meeting of minds between the business and the union both of whom can see the importance of this product for their mutual well being. Roger Annies might have made a stand but it is the liberalisation of the market that has really forced he and his colleagues to deliver the junk mail.