You've got Mail

If you read Metro or one of the other rightwing papers (which ones aren't, these days?), all you'll have seen about the upcoming potential postal strike is that posties are lazy bastards who constantly skive and con their managers.

Anita the Lurker has kindly sent me this article from the London Review of Books (very good - subscribe today) which explains in some detail how the Mail is being made to look inefficient and obsolete, and how managerial culture is destroying this iconic lifeline. Funnily enough, posties are being treated in the same way we academics are - as blockages to some imaginary 'income stream' or 'repositioning' or whatever buzzword's current.