Half of those surveyed (50%) sympathised with the postal workers and the Unions as opposed to the Royal Mail management (25%) according to an opinion poll carried out by ComRes for BBC Two's Newsnight.

However, the vast majority of people do not think that the Royal Mail should be privatised (68%), with only 22% thinking that it should be.

Asked how long they thought the Royal Mail will continue as the sole provider of door to door delivery, more than half (56%) think that they will continue as the sole provider for less than five years.  Around one in ten (13%) think they’ll last less than a year.

The image of the friendly neighbourhood postie seems long gone, as only one in seven people know the name of their postman (14%) and, broken down across the country, this is just 1 in 25 (4%) in the South East.