Postal workers have been protesting in Westminster as the row grows over plans to sell off 30% of Royal Mail. Ministers say the company cannot survive as it is and needs to be part-privatised to pay for modernisation.

Leaked documents suggest that the 30% to be sold include Dundee, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, Newcastle and the entire county of Fife. It is believed that all of these places run at a major operating loss, principally because of the huge cost of delivering unemployment benefit cheques. One option that ministers are looking at is to sell the DSS business to these areas and keep the remaining 5% which is private mail.

Among expected bidders for the benefit mail is ‘Sir’ Richard Branson. He intends to rebrand it as Virgin DSS although it is thought that this concept might cause particular confusion in Dundee.

It is believed that the last Dundonian virgin who received unemployment benefit was jam heiress Lady Marmalade Keillor who became destitute after the pips fell out of the Seville orange market in 1886.

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