Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier says he hopes that “common sense prevails” in the Communication Workers Union and next week’s postal strikes are called off.

Good luck with that.

Asking a trade union to use “common sense” is like asking a dog to purr. It’s simply not possible. If they used common sense, they wouldn’t have been striking in the first place and would be happily modifing their oudated practices.

Sending letters is now very much a minority activity – most people do personal communication by email text or phone nowadays, except for Christmas and birthday cards. The postal strike will just speed up the increase of non-postal communication and cause businesses to switch to other providers – and thus the loss of postal workers jobs.

We can all hope that the CWU does let common sense prevail for the sake of its members – but let’s not hold our breath.