Year by year Royal Mail is issuing more and more commemorative postage stamps that have little to do with prepayment for a postal service and everything to do with flooding an ever diminishing worldwide collector market already saturated with superfluous new issues.

The Royal Mail 2008 stamp programme already contains 15 new stamp issues and includes subjects as diverse as: James Bond (January 8); working dogs (February 5); The Houses of Lancaster and York (February 28); Celebrating Northern Ireland (March 11); Mayday – Rescue at Sea, the work of the RNLI and coastguards (March 13); Insects (April 15); Cathedrals, including Westminster Cathedral and Lichfield Cathedral (May 13); Classic Carry On and Hammer Films (June 10); Air shows (July 17); Olympic Games (Available in August); RAF Uniforms (September 18); The 50th Anniversary of Country Definitives (September 29); Women of Distinction (October 14) and Lest We Forget (November 6).

Most these stamps and values are not needed for postal purposes and are not freely available from post offices and other sales outlets. Furthermore, if internal revenue targets are not being met, extra issues and “instant stamps” will undoubtedly be added. This is despite the fact that in April Royal Mail is increasing the price of a 1st-class stamp by 2p to 36p, while 2nd-class stamps will go up by 3p to 27p.

The six engaging stamps issued on January 8 feature different editions of the James Bond novels, including Casino Royale, published in 1952, Dr No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger, marking the centenary of the birth of the James Bond creator, the British author Ian Fleming, on May 28, 1908.

Questions may be asked as to why other events are not to be commemorated. Why, for instance, was the 50th anniversary of the achievement of the British explorer Sir Vivian Fuchs not included on a special stamp? On 2 March, 1958 a British team led by Fuchs completed the first crossing of the Antarctic in snow-cat caterpillar tractors and dogsled teams in 99 days.

The man responsible for the Royal Mail stamp programme hides behind anonymity and all pertinent questions to him about the new issue policy, subjects and stamp designs, are fielded by a news room. For the record the gentleman’s name is Philip Parker, a former of employee of Greenpeace, the environmental campaigner.

The annual 2007 Christmas stamps were issued on November 4 and included the two Madonna & Child self-adhesive stamps and the six “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” — the first time that Royal Mail had issued two Christmas sets, one a religious and the other a specifically Christian theme, in the same year. The Madonna & Child stamps were not made widely available, another PR reverse for Royal Mail. It was suggested that these particular stamps might offend people of other faiths, but in Birmingham, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh faith leaders made clear in the local media that they had no objection to the stamps, and hoped that symbols representing their own faiths might also be included on later Royal Mail stamp issues.

The Royal Mail distribution depot in Swindon had plenty of time to ensure that all post office and sales outlets received sufficient supplies to meet the considerable customer demand for these fine stamps depicting precious Christian artwork.

Since last autumn, Post Office Counters, a division of Royal Mail, seems to have been doing everything possible to phase out the sale and use of commemorative stamps on letters, small packets and parcels. It is often impossible to buy new commemorative stamps even from Crown Post Offices, and definitive stamps are replaced with a computer-generated receipt, popularly called “Horizon labels”, to indicate the pre-payment of postage. This is extremely bad news for collectors and the absorbing hobby of philately and makes for very dull looking letters and parcels as they arrive at their destination.