Royal Mail owner pushes back against criticisms that service has declined
Daniel Křetínský, the Czech billionaire who bought Royal Mail’s parent company for £3.6bn last year, has insisted that service has not declined under his ownership, despite heavy criticism of late deliveries and price rises.In a defensive and sometimes impassioned performance in front of MPs on the business select committee, Křetínský said he was “deeply sorry” for any letters that arrive late.Since his takeover, Royal Mail has battled trade unions over working conditions, raised first-class stamp prices from £1.70 to £1.
80 and delivered 16m Christmas letters late,But Křetínský hit back at a string of complaints listed by members of the committee, including that service is getting worse and that more lucrative parcels are being prioritised over letters,With a week to go until Royal Mail’s service targets are reduced by the regulator Ofcom, he also said the UK’s expectations remain far higher than those in other European countries,The committee’s chair, Liam Byrne, began the session by saying that the company was on track to deliver 220m letters late this year, of a total of 5,6bn.
He asked Křetínský, who made much of his fortune from oil and gas, to apologise for the “decline in Royal Mail services”.But the investor, known as the “Czech Sphinx” for his supposedly inscrutable demeanour, defied the nickname to issue a pugnacious defence of his record, blaming a number of external factors.These included the UK’s comparatively high expectations for next-day delivery at relatively low prices.“This is a hard job, this is a job that nobody else in Europe is doing,” he said.“If you send a letter from Brighton to the Scottish Highlands you need to get it there for £1.
80 the next day.”He said that in Italy, first-class letters cost €5.50 (£4.76) and that regulators there only required delivery targets to be met 80% of the time.From next week, Ofcom will ease pressure on the postal service by lowering the Royal Mail’s targets under the so-called “universal service obligation”.
It will only be required to deliver 90% of first-class mail within one working day (instead of 93%), and 95% of second-class mail within three days (instead of 98,5%),The Royal Mail is missing even the reduced targets at the moment,Křetínský also denied the service was prioritising more profitable parcels over letters, after Byrne read out testimony from postal workers claiming that this is the case,“This is not an isolated pattern, this is a national breakdown in the service,” said Byrne.
The billionaire said this may have happened in crisis moments when delivery offices needed to clear blockages or delays caused by staff sickness, but was not policy,He also said it was unfair that the Royal Mail was expected to compete on parcels with businesses that do not offer staff full employment and whose labour costs were half those of the Royal Mail as a result,Křetínský said he would welcome government measures to improve employment conditions for parcel drivers working for other firms,The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know,If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods:The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories.
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Estate of Mike Lynch ordered to pay £920m to Hewlett-Packard
The estate of late British tech tycoon Mike Lynch has been ordered to pay £920m to the technology company Hewlett-Packard (HP) two years after he died in a superyacht disaster.The ruling by London’s high court said the estate was liable to pay the sum as compensation, costs and interest for HP’s acquisition of Lynch’s firm Autonomy, after a UK legal ruling in 2022 that he duped the US firm into paying £8.2bn for his software firm Autonomy.The deceased entrepreneur’s estate has been estimated to be worth about £500m, so the damages could leave it bankrupt.Lynch and six others, including his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, died in August 2024 on a trip with friends and family celebrating his acquittal on US fraud charges relating to HP’s $11bn takeover of Autonomy in 2011
Energy price shock and interest rate rises could cause ‘pronounced’ UK recession, economist warns – as it happened
Britain’s economy could be dragged into recession by the end of this year by high energy prices and interest rate hikes, economists at Morgan Stanley have warned.Following this morning’s data showing a slowdown in private sector growth this month and a surge in input costs (see 9.41am), Morgan Stanley economist Bruna Skarica has warned that the energy price shock is likely to prompt the Bank of England to raise interest rates, which would hurt growth.Skarica points out that oil prices have risen by around 40% since January, with natural gas contracts up by around 80%, prompted the financial markets to predict the BoE will raise rates this year.Skarica told clients:double quotation markShould these financial conditions and commodity prices be sustained in the coming months, we would be calling for a pronounced UK recession at the turn of the year
Divide between Silicon Valley and ordinary people grows ever larger
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. This week in tech, we discuss a moment of divergence between Silicon Valley and everyday people; deep cuts at Meta to maximize spending on AI; writers caught using AI; and the frightening, fiery crashes of the Tesla Cybertruck.Nvidia hosted a conference last week where it emphasized AI agents – semi-autonomous chatbots that can perform digital tasks for you – as the next frontier in tech. The company announced a toolkit for agents, including NemoClaw, an AI agent software suite for businesses
Amount of AI-generated child sexual abuse material found online surged in 2025
The amount of AI-generated child sexual abuse material found online rose by 14% last year, with the majority of videos showing the most extreme type of content, according to a safety watchdog.The Internet Watch Foundation said it identified 8,029 AI-made images and videos of realistic child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in 2025. It added that there had been a more than 260-fold increase in videos.The IWF said 65% of the 3,443 videos were classified as category A, the term for the most severe material under UK law. The corresponding figure for non-AI videos was 43%, said the watchdog, showing that the technology was being used to create more violent content
World Snooker Championship to remain at Crucible until at least 2045 with revamp
Barry Hearn concedes he has let his heart rule his head for the first time in his career after striking a remarkable new long-term deal to keep snooker’s world championship at the Crucible Theatre – before hinting that his son Eddie was among those who were against the decision.The tournament has been played at the 980-seat venue in Sheffield since 1977, and it will remain there until at least 2045 with an option to extend to 2050 after World Snooker Tour and Sheffield city council agreed a contract to ensure snooker’s most prestigious event will stay at its spiritual home.As part of the agreement, the Crucible will undergo a renovation after the 2028 tournament, with the venue securing £45m of government investment that Hearn admitted was decisive in keeping snooker in Sheffield. An extra 500 seats will be installed at the theatre, taking capacity to 1500.It is a striking and notable agreement for the sport, not least because Hearn himself had made loud noises in recent years about the need for a completely rebuilt Crucible with at least 3,000 seats if the world championship was to remain in Sheffield amid interest from places such as Saudi Arabia and China
West Ham stadium stance could block London’s World Athletics Championships bid, warns Coe
Sebastian Coe has warned that London’s bid for the 2029 World Athletics Championships could be scuppered by West Ham’s refusal to allow their stadium to be used in September.World Athletics has made it clear to bidding cities, which the Guardian understands also includes Rome, Munich and Nairobi as well as a mooted Indian city, that the world championships should be the grand finale to the athletics season.However West Ham are so far refusing to vacate their stadium for around three weeks in September, despite the London bid having the strong backing of the government and the mayor’s office.“It’s really difficult for me because I have a view, but I have to be scrupulously neutral, because London is clearly not the only bid out there,” said Lord Coe. “All I would say is that I would hope that there is a recognition that outside the Olympic Games and the World Cup, this is the third-largest sporting gathering in a four-year cycle
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