South London residents feel 'forgotten' after Royal Mail delays
Anthony, a Carshalton resident, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he and his wife had to collect urgent post from the sorting office after not receiving mail for over a week."They're only dropping off parcels," he said, quoting a Royal Mail driver who claimed staff were told "not to bother with letters right now".Royal Mail is legally obliged to deliver first-class mail within one working day.Last year, the company failed to meet delivery targets in all London postcodes, and Liberal Democrat MP Bobby Dean said there did not appear to have been any signs of improvement.Dean, who represents Carshalton and Wallington, described the situation as "completely unacceptable" and said it was clear "Royal Mail is in disarray"."When I contacted Royal Mail for an explanation, they simply said that they had 'operational issues'. That's not good enough," he said."Previous fines have clearly done nothing to change the company's behaviour. Communities across the UK depend on this service, and there is now an urgent need for greater transparency and accountability."
The MP has urged Ofcom, which regulates Royal Mail, to step in and tackle what he said were repeated failures and a lack of transparency from the company.Residents and businesses in Croydon experienced similar delays of up to two weeks over the last Christmas period due to staffing shortages at Royal Mail's Factory Lane sorting office.The disruption impacted the delivery of time-sensitive items, including NHS appointment letters and medical prescriptions.In response to the recent delays, a Royal Mail spokesperson said: "We acknowledge that our quality of service is not yet where we want it to be, and we're working hard to deliver the standard our customers in Carshalton and Wallington expect."They added that across the UK, the vast majority of first-class letters still arrived within two days, and that significant drops in letter volumes meant households may no longer receive daily deliveries."Delays lasting weeks are not something our local delivery offices are reporting," they said."We will contact the local MP to better understand and investigate the concerns raised by residents."
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The Independent
a minute ago
- The Independent
How the HS2 shambles could have been avoided – if we'd copied the Swiss
'Eighteen years in, we still don't have a design for Euston,' laments Thomas Ableman. 'And then we wondered why the cost ballooned.' He is, of course, talking about HS2: the high-speed railway linking London Euston with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Regrettably, you can forget about the last two cities; those crucial spurs were scrapped under the last government in an attempt to save money amid ballooning costs, while seeking votes from motorists. You can also forget for now about trains starting and ending at Euston in central London. With no design for the terminus station (and currently no cash to build it), when HS2 finally opens a decade or more from now, it will be a shuttle between a place called Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham. Whether you are a passenger, a taxpayer or a resident of one of the locations being dug up for ever-diminishing national benefits, you have the right to be furious at a succession of politicians who have created the world's greatest example of how not to manage a vast infrastructure project. Within the transport world, everyone has an opinion on who is to blame. But Mr Ableman is different. He has had a distinguished career with Transport for London, Chiltern Railways and National Express, and created an intercity start-up named Sn-ap. He writes and podcasts about delivering better mobility. And his best blog this summer is called: ' This is how the Swiss would have done HS2 '. They wouldn't start with a grandiose project with 'a glossy brand or separate company', says Mr Ableman. 'No HS2 Ltd with its own culture and operating model and interface challenges. Just a series of connected but self-contained projects, each delivered by Network Rail as part of normal business. 'They pick a year in the future – 2045, say – and ask: what should the national train timetable look like then, if we want to meet our national objectives as a country? They work out what a good timetable looks like in that future. Then they build backwards from there. 'It sounds simple – even obvious – but it leads you to a very different way of working.' What is also crucial: a fund that guarantees a certain amount of spending on rail infrastructure every year, rather than a hand-to-mouth dependence on the Treasury and volatile politicians. Mr Ableman contemplates how the Swiss approach would have worked in the UK. Planners would have identified that key regional hubs – Birmingham New Street, Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly – are desperately short of decent rail connections from the suburbs because they don't have enough platform space. They would understand that the line between Coventry and Birmingham has a hopelessly inadequate timetable for the many prospective passengers who live along the route, because suburban trains must share the pair of tracks with intercity expresses. Across the whole country, to improve the service for millions: 'The fast tracks need to be used by slower trains, so the fastest trains need to run somewhere else.' The Swiss would take those problems and create a timetable that solves them. 'And then they'd ask: what infrastructure do we need to make this timetable possible?' Guess what: the solution to Britain's rail needs looks rather like HS2. 'However, because they know exactly what they can afford, every year, forever, they could immediately identify that it's too expensive. 'Because they know what they can afford, they can now value-engineer a version that fits. In the UK, no one really knows how much money the Treasury will be willing to release, or when. In Switzerland, there's a budget envelope. It's predictable. 'So having come up with an unaffordable infrastructure plan to deliver a perfect timetable, they'd go back, iterate the timetable, tweak the infrastructure plan and adjust things until it all fits. And then they'd start building.' Rather than a big bang, a rolling programme of cumulative upgrades would deliver key benefits early along the way to that timetable tuned for the needs of the nation. 'I can't promise every part will be delivered on-time and on-budget but it's much more likely,' he writes. 'And if something isn't late, it doesn't mean that the whole shebang is late – just that one project.' Mr Ableman's conclusion is chilling: that the Treasury's refusal to commit to long-term funding 'creates exactly the conditions that make infrastructure expensive'. Unintentionally, he says, the Treasury is 'the biggest driver of waste and inefficiency in UK infrastructure'. Politicians who really care about mobility – the economic and social benefits it unlocks – should accept that the problems of Britain's decrepit rail network are rooted in a timetable that works for almost nobody. Swiss railways work for everyone.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
NGOs urge Nandy to halt sale of Telegraph over China links
A group of nine human rights and freedom of expression organisations have called on the culture secretary to halt RedBird Capital's proposed £500m takeover of the Telegraph and investigate the US private equity company's ties to China. The international non-governmental organisations, which include Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders and Article 19, have written to Lisa Nandy arguing that RedBird Capital's links with China 'threaten media pluralism, transparency and information integrity in the UK'. A consortium led by RedBird Capital agreed a deal in May to buy the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, ending two years of uncertainty over the future of the titles. The organisations said that RedBird Capital's chair, John Thornton, sits on the advisory council of the China Investment Corporation, the country's largest sovereign wealth fund. Thornton, a former chair of Goldman Sachs Asia, has also previously chaired the Silk Road Finance Corporation. 'Both [are] vehicles through which China has pursued financial influence,' the letter said. The signatories, who also include Hong Kong Watch, Human Rights in China and the Hong Kong Democracy Council, said Nandy should follow her predecessor, Lucy Frazer, who issued a public interest intervention notice (PIIN) in January last year. RedBird Capital, which contributed 25% of the funding to the RedBird IMI joint venture that controls the Telegraph, is in the process of buying out its partner, IMI. IMI, which may retain a stake of up to 15% in the Telegraph under RedBird Capital's plan, is controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, vice-president of the United Arab Emirates. The letter to Nandy states: 'We believe that there is reasonable grounds to suspect the Telegraph acquisition by RedBird Capital raises both public interest and potential foreign media influence concerns. We call on you to issue relevant notices to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Ofcom.' The signatories also said the culture department should ensure that the investigations carried out by the CMA and Ofcom, the communications regulator, involve independent consultation with 'experts in Chinese foreign information manipulation and influence operations, as well as experts in media pluralism, transparency, and freedom of expression'. Separately, the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith and the independent peer David Alton have written to Nandy asking her to investigate reports of a £5.3m editorial budget cut. The politicians claim that the cuts, revealed by the former Telegraph journalist Fraser Nelson, represent a change to the paper's structure that is not allowed during a takeover process. They argued that the government's 2024 public interest merger reference pending approval of a takeover prohibits changes to the editorial structure and staff of the Telegraph. A spokesperson for the newspaper group, said: 'Ongoing management and oversight of Telegraph Media Group and its operations require the board and chief executive to liaise with all relevant stakeholders, including RedBird Capital, in line with agreed governance protocols. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion 'The board and chief executive will continue to fulfil their fiduciary duties and facilitate an anticipated transaction, consistent with the requirements of relevant government legislation.' In June, a cross-party group of MPs and peers, including Duncan Smith and Lord Alton, called on ministers to investigate how RedBird Capital is funding its £500m takeover. A spokesperson for RedBird said: 'There is no Chinese involvement or influence in RedBird Capital's proposed acquisition of the Telegraph.' They added that the company had 'been clear on its position regarding press independence, which is a fundamental tenet of its investment thesis in owning and growing news businesses – whether it's CBS News in the US or the Telegraph in the UK'. The spokesperson said that, after more than two years in 'regulatory limbo', it was now time for the takeover to be completed and to 'finally position the Telegraph for growth'. 'The partnership with RedBird will enable the Telegraph's world-class group of editors and reporters to thrive in this transformative moment for news organisations globally.' Last month, the sale of the Telegraph came a step closer after government legislation to allow foreign states to own up to 15% in British newspapers survived a potentially fatal vote in the House of Lords. RedBird Capital – which is also potentially aiming to bring in investors including the parent company of the Daily Mail and Len Blavatnik, the owner of Warner Music – has also said it can fully fund a deal in its own right. The government declined to comment.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
UK police should consider revealing ethnicity of suspects, says new guidance
Police forces should consider disclosing the ethnicity and migration status of suspects when they are charged in high-profile and sensitive investigations, according to new official guidance. After a row over claims that police 'covered up' the backgrounds of two men charged in connection with the alleged rape of a child, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing have backed plans to release details of nationality when there is a 'policing purpose' for doing so. This could be to reduce the risk to public safety, 'where there are high levels of mis- or disinformation about a particular incident', or in cases of significant public interest, senior police said. The decision to release new guidance has been praised by a former senior prosecutor, who said it could help counter rumours and disinformation which spread on social media. But it will also anger some anti-racist campaigners, who have expressed concern that such proposals could risk framing violence against women and girls as an issue of ethnicity instead of misogyny. The decision comes after Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, urged police to release the details of ethnicity last week. Forces are already encouraged to publicise charging decisions in serious cases, the NPCC said. Decisions on whether to release this information will remain with forces, an NPCC statement said, with wider legal and ethical considerations. The Home Office will decide if it is 'appropriate in all the circumstances' to confirm immigration status of a suspect, the guidance said. Failure to share basic facts about the Southport killer last summer led to 'dangerous fictions' which helped spark rioting, an independent watchdog found. Jonathan Hall KC, the UK's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said it would have been 'far better' for the authorities to share more accurate detail about the arrest of Axel Rudakubana on 29 July last year. Far-right agitators wrongly claimed that the killer was a Muslim asylum seeker. Deputy chief constable Sam de Reya, the NPCC lead for communications and media, said: 'We saw during last summer's disorder, as well as in several recent high-profile cases, what the major, real-world consequences can be from what information police release into the public domain. 'We have to make sure our processes are fit for purpose in an age of social media speculation and where information can travel incredibly quickly across a wide range of channels. 'Disinformation and incorrect narratives can take hold in a vacuum. It is good police work for us to fill this vacuum with the facts about issues of wider public interest.' Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor for North West England, cautiously welcomed the decision. 'Trust is so low that more transparency is a good thing, as recent experience has shown. It has to be on a case by case basis though,' he said. The Warwickshire police and crime commissioner, Philip Seccombe, called for fresh national guidance after police were accused by Reform UK of failing to confirm that two Afghan men being prosecuted for an alleged attack on a 12-year-old girl were asylum seekers. The alleged rape, said to have happened on 22 July, was at the centre of a political storm after the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, amplified claims of a police cover-up. Ahmad Mulakhil has been charged with rape and Mohammad Kabir has been charged with kidnap and strangulation.
