Only three-quarters of first class mail delivered on time. A statistic that would have scandalised the Victorians, who built the penny post into a marvel of industrial efficiency. Yet here we are, in 2025, clucking our tongues at Royal Mail’s latest failure while simultaneously ignoring the deeper malady it represents.
The slow, systemic decay of institutional competence. This is not a mere operational hiccup. It is a cultural malaise, a loss of pride in the mundane mechanics that hold society together.
We have become a nation that tolerates mediocrity because we have forgotten what excellence looks like. The Victorian era, for all its faults, understood that a letter delivered on time was a contract between citizen and state. Today, we treat that contract as an optional extra.
Reform demands? Yes, but not the tinkering of managers or the grandstanding of politicians. We need a revival of purpose, a collective shudder of shame that our great-great-grandparents would have found incomprehensible.
