Royal Mail is failing Britain. First-Class prices, Second-Class service, and a postal system that seems increasingly incapable of delivering the post. Quite an achievement, really, for an organisation whose principal purpose is, well, delivering things.

A First-Class stamp now costs £1.80, compared with just 41p in 2010. That's an increase of nearly 340%. And what do we get for this rather impressive rise in postage prices? According to the latest annual figures, only 75.7% of First-Class letters actually arrived the next working day. Which means roughly one in four didn't.

Perhaps First Class now refers to the price rather than the service.

In this episode of Mark and Pete, we investigate the extraordinary decline of Royal Mail, Britain's historic postal service, and ask a fairly straightforward question: how can something become so much more expensive whilst becoming so much less reliable?

Royal Mail has been part of British life for over 500 years. From Henry VIII to the Penny Black, from red pillar boxes to the familiar postman trudging through the rain, it's one of those institutions that seems almost inseparable from Britain itself.

Or was.

Because the modern Royal Mail is a very different beast. Delivery delays, missed targets, rising stamp prices, job cuts, privatisation and regulatory fines have turned a once-trusted institution into a national source of irritation.

And the statistics are fairly astonishing.

Only 90.2% of Second-Class mail arrived within three working days in 2025/26. Royal Mail has received more than £37 million in Ofcom fines for previous delivery failures. Now another 2,500 jobs are potentially disappearing as the company attempts to restructure.

Meanwhile, the regulator has actually lowered delivery performance targets. Yes, lowered them. Apparently, when you keep missing the target, the solution is to make the target easier.

One wonders whether this approach might catch on in schools.

But there's another side to this story, and it's worth considering. Letter volumes have collapsed from around 20 billion annually to just 6.5 billion. Emails, WhatsApp and online banking have changed everything. Royal Mail still has to serve millions of addresses, including isolated rural communities, whether delivering to them makes commercial sense or not.

So perhaps the problem isn't quite as simple as incompetent management.

Then again, perhaps it is partly that.

We explore Royal Mail privatisation, its takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský, postal workers' struggles, the future of the universal postal service, and whether Britain should consider bringing Royal Mail back into public ownership.

Would nationalisation improve things? Or simply give us an expensive government-run failure instead of an expensive privately owned one?

And what about the postmen and postwomen who still get up early, work in miserable weather and keep the system functioning despite everything?

This isn't merely about late birthday cards. It's about medical appointments, legal documents, elderly people and the basic expectation that a paid-for service should actually work.

Join Mark and Pete for a funny, occasionally furious and distinctly British examination of Royal Mail's decline.

Because when something costs First-Class money, expecting First-Class service really shouldn't be considered unreasonable.

Winston Churchill is out, hedgehogs are in, and the Bank of England has decided that Britain's greatest heroes should make way for wildlife. Yes, really. The man who helped save Britain from Nazi Germany is being replaced, eventually, by something that curls into a ball when frightened. Which, come to think of it, might be a fairly accurate description of British political leadership these days.

The Bank of England has announced that Britain's new £5, £10, £20 and £50 banknotes will feature animals instead of famous historical figures. Goodbye Winston Churchill, Jane Austen, JMW Turner and Alan Turing. Hello hedgehog, barn owl, puffin and bumblebee.

Now, we like hedgehogs. Who doesn't? Delightful little creatures. Excellent at eating slugs, although rather less impressive at winning world wars. But why, exactly, are we removing the people who helped make Britain great from the money we use every day?

In this episode of Mark and Pete, we explore the extraordinary decision to replace Britain's national heroes with British wildlife. Is this simply an innocent redesign, a celebration of nature, or another symptom of Britain's increasingly uncomfortable relationship with its own history?

Nearly 480,000 people participated in the Bank of England's wildlife consultation, choosing from 18 shortlisted animals. The bumblebee received more than 360,000 nominations. Apparently, the nation has spoken. Although, curiously, it wasn't asked whether Churchill ought to be replaced by a hedgehog in the first place. That decision had already been made. Bank of England

And there's the rub.

For over 50 years, British banknotes have celebrated outstanding individuals who contributed to our national story. Scientists, writers, engineers, reformers and statesmen. People who achieved remarkable things, occasionally made dreadful mistakes, and generally behaved like human beings. Flawed ones. Rather like the rest of us.

But have we reached the point where celebrating British history is considered embarrassing?

Of course, the Bank of England argues that wildlife makes excellent banknote imagery, particularly for security features. Fair enough. Nobody wants counterfeit currency. And Britain has some magnificent wildlife. But surely we can appreciate a puffin without forgetting the achievements of Alan Turing?

This raises a much bigger question about British identity, national pride, historical revisionism and our cultural heritage.

Are we becoming ashamed of our heroes? Is political correctness quietly erasing our history? Or are Mark and Pete getting unnecessarily worked up about pictures on bits of plastic?

Quite possibly. But those pictures tell us something about what a country values.

We discuss Winston Churchill's legacy, the importance of remembering our national achievements, the strange business of judging historical figures by modern standards, and whether Britain is gradually losing confidence in its own story.

Because a nation that forgets its history may eventually forget what made it worth celebrating.

And while hedgehogs are undoubtedly charming, they haven't, so far as we're aware, defeated Hitler.

Join Mark and Pete for a lively, irreverent and occasionally exasperated discussion about British banknotes, British history, national identity and the peculiar priorities of modern Britain.

The Elgin Marbles, the Parthenon sculptures, the British Museum, Greece, cultural ownership, restitution and one of the longest-running arguments in European public life. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we ask the awkward but increasingly unavoidable question: should Britain finally give the Elgin Marbles back to Greece?

The debate is back because Greece has renewed its pressure for the return of the Parthenon sculptures, and with a new Prime Minister in Britain there is, inevitably, the suggestion that perhaps this is the moment for a deal. The argument has been running for more than two centuries, which is impressive even by diplomatic standards.

The sculptures were removed from the Parthenon in Athens in the early nineteenth century by Lord Elgin, then British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Greece was under Ottoman rule at the time. Elgin claimed permission. Greece has long argued that an occupying power had no moral right to give away part of the country’s most important ancient monument.

And that, really, is where the whole thing becomes interesting.

Because this is not simply about whether Britain owns some old statues. The Parthenon sculptures were part of one architectural work, created in the fifth century BC and designed to be seen together. Today, many of the surviving pieces are split between London and Athens. The Acropolis Museum has deliberately been designed so that the surviving sculptures can be viewed in relation to the Parthenon itself, while the British Museum argues that placing them in London allows them to be understood within the wider story of world civilisation.

Both arguments have some weight.

We look at how much of the original sculptural decoration survives, how much is in Britain, how much remains in Greece, the legal restrictions under the British Museum Act, and why a straightforward permanent return is rather more complicated than simply putting the marbles in a van and pointing it towards Dover.

There are also wider questions. If Britain returns the Parthenon sculptures, what happens to other disputed objects in museums? Should modern nations be held responsible for decisions made under empires that vanished generations ago? Does returning something weaken a museum, or can it actually demonstrate confidence rather than guilt?

And then there is the slightly uncomfortable British instinct to say, “Well, we’ve had them for ages now,” which is not normally regarded as a watertight argument for ownership.

Perhaps the most sensible solution is some form of permanent reunification in Athens combined with substantial long-term Greek loans to Britain. That would preserve access in London while acknowledging that these particular sculptures belong, artistically and historically, with the building for which they were made.

Or perhaps Britain should keep them.

Mark and Pete will, naturally, settle a 200-year diplomatic dispute in about twenty minutes.

Probably.