The government's approach to the future of the Royal Mail owes much to Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty, with words seemingly meaning whatever ministers want them to - or so the Conservatives and some Labour MPs claim. The fate of the state-owned postal operator has been couched ambiguously, reflecting conflicting pressures on Tony Blair.

The clear steer in favour of a potential shift from 100 per cent state ownership to some form of employee shareholding, given to MPs yesterday by Alan Johnson, the trade and industry secretary, paves the way for a potentially radical change in the structure of the postal services operator. But the prime minister will need to tread carefully if he is not to damage relations with the trades unions and his parliamentary party.