From today's Grauniad:

Nick Dines, the head of communications at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "This is good news for small businesses in the UK who have essentially been held at ransom by the CWU.

"The strike has shown that although in theory the monopoly on delivery has been broken, the reality is that there is no cost-effective alternative to Royal Mail.

"Management and the union must ensure that crippling strikes like this do not happen again."

Now, I'm not saying that Nick Dines is giving his true opinions in this statement. I'm just saying that if he is, he is a fucktard who manages to represent employers without the faintest understanding of industrial relations. Still, it's good to be reminded that throwbacks like this didn't die out with the birth of the welfare state.