It's open season...

on Royal Mail at the moment. Missing post, late post, lost post, stolen post. I tell you, we are heading towards the dark ages. We'll wake up one day unable to use email because spam and viruses are clogging up the system; and the phone system will be similarly clogged with text spam and junk voice mail; and we'll want to be able to post letters again, only there won't be a post office any more.

In my limited experience, from which I am going to generalise wildly (take cover, trekkies) there will always be at least one person in each local delivery office who is nicking stuff. There just always is, which is why you're advised not to send cash in birthday cards and so on. So multiply one thieving scallywag per locality and you have the size of the problem.

You're as likely to flush out the thieves as you are to deal effectively with email spam, fraud, and viruses. It's the perennial problem of noise, so beloved of Michel Serres. It's always going to be an imperfect system, one that functions in spite of its failings, a system that works, if you will, because it does not work.