Next week it will fall to Labour peers in the House of Lords to fight the fight begun by Labour MPs to oppose Lord Mandelson's part-privatisation of Royal Mail.
Though it's easy to see why the business secretary is to start the bill in the upper house – he's a peer himself and this policy is pretty much his magnum opus, the counter-briefing was that it was a cynical bid by the government to start the proceedings in the Lords since it would give the Commons' whips more time to buy off the more fractious MPs. Maybe as much as six months.
Well.
Lord Clarke will open proceedings – he's a former postman who, I am told, recently shouted at Mandelson that he was "shameless" in bringing forward this policy.
Well, Clarke will speak against it at second reading but my understanding is that this will die. Labour Lords are uncomfortable backing him since they refuse to vote against a government measure at second reading – for "constitutional reasons". You might think this obvious. It is.
But it does bear stating that the first parliamentary test of opinion on this policy will not be a rejection. Westminster chatter is that this policy – despite the scale of backbench opposition in the Commons – is not necessarily something Labour MPs and peers will go to the grave for.
I do wonder what it means for negotiations on statutory redundancy – with backbenchers and the very same government ministers involved in the above (Pat McFadden, post office minister, and Mandelson, at least these are the ministers who are in preliminary meetings on statutory redundancy).
In this regard, Labour MPs want the government to make businesses pay out more. In addition to their 130 MPs signed up, they boast key Lib Dem support and a scatter of Tories. McFadden is apparently despairing over backbencher demands, Mandelson more emollient. Perhaps he sees that giving ground on this may help win round Labour MPs on the other. Beyond my pay grade.
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