Why is a 1st class stamp expensive?

I have sent a Christmas card to a relative in Canada, a distance of 3,400 miles at a cost of £1.80 by air mail. Whereas if I send the same card to a relative in the next village five miles away it costs 80p.

That works out at 16p per mile in Wales or 0.055p per mile to send it to Canada via air mail.

For the card in Wales the Royal Mail has to empty a post box, sort the mail, deliver it and charge 80p.

For the Canadian card they have to empty a post box, sort the mail, take it to an airport, load it onto a cargo plane and fly it to Canada, unload it and put it on another plane that is flying to the part of Canada to where the card is to be delivered, unload that plane, re-sort the mail into local deliveries to take by road etc. And for all that they charge £1.80.

Is this policy of continual price rises by the Royal Mail to make the whole of the postal service more attractive to the private sector to buy, which then may make postal workers redundant and replace them with cheaper labour and much reduced working conditions and more profits for the new owners?

Derek Hanlin

Porth