Royal Mail: No Christmas Stamp Conspiracy

On the 30th of November, I wrote a post about a a rumour I heard that the post office would only sell Christmas stamps 'under the counter' if someone specifically asked for them.

I've since seen a variation of this rumour to the effect that the Post Office were trying to 'push' the 'non-religious' angel Christmas stamps so that sales of the 'Madonna and Child' Christmas stamps would be low and that they could claim in future years that there was no demand for 'relgious' Christmas stamps.

Dave Faulkner contacted the Royal Mail about these rumours. You can see his latest post on the subjet here. The text of the Royal Mail's official statement is reproduced below from Dave's blog:

We have become aware of an incorrect assertion being made about the motives behind the sales of our Christmas stamps. There is absolutely no intention on our part to suppress sales of the Madonna and Child stamps in order to be able to claim there is low demand for religious stamps in future years. Indeed, we have produced tens of millions of them, and we want to sell them!! We have given publicity to both types of Christmas stamps, and the availability of both has been widely covered in the national and local press. Furthermore we plan to have the Madonna and Child stamps available every Christmas in future, alongside each year's "special" set, which will continue to alternate between religious and secular themes.

A Non-Conspiracy Theory

I recently received a couple of emails informing me that that the Post Office are selling Christmas stamps 'under the counter'. In fact, both emails were strikingly similar and one was passed on to me by a minister.

The emails said that the Post Office is only willing to sell this year's Christmas stamps if the customer specifically requests Christmas stamps. They said that postal workers are not allowed to offer Christmas stamps or ask the customer if they want them. The reason cited was 'to avoid offending radical secularists'.

So today whilst at the post office, I told the lady behind the counter about the rumour and I asked if this was true. She looked at me like I was mad and then rolled her eyes and said 'Honestly, I don't know how people come up with this stuff.' She went on to explain that businesses sometimes don't want Christmas stamps but that she 'could usually tell' if someone was buying stamps for business or personal use.

She stated that staff do offer Christmas stamps to people during the holiday season but that they will say 'It's Christmas stamps, is that OK?'

As Christians, we are supposed to be interested in truth. It serves no one to spread these kinds of rumours.