In an interview in today's Financial Times, the new trade and industry secretary Alan Johnson floats the idea of a part-privatisation of the Post Office.
This would seem to fly in the face of Labour's manifesto commitment to keeping the Royal Mail "publicly owned".
Closer inspection reveals that what Mr Johnson – a former postie himself – suggests is only a "John Lewis" style partial privatisation, whereby the government's controlling 51% stake could be sold from state to staff.
He says: "I'd rule out privatisation full stop ... We don't want to go down that particular Railtrack, so to speak.
"If you're asking me would you be interested in something that wasn't privatisation but had a greater mututality in a cooperative way, I'm always interested in that."
It gets a short rebuff from Billy Hayes, the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, who retorts it would be "a breach of the manifesto ... a spin too far and too fast."
So when is a privatisation not a privatisation ... ?
