The Business Secretary Lord Mandelson was accused today of deliberately provoking Britain's first nationwide postal strike in two years as thousands of Royal Mail workers joined the first in a series of rolling stoppages before Christmas.

Picket lines built up outside mail centres around the country as sorting staff and drivers began a 24-hour stoppage. Delivery and collection staff are to hold a one-day strike tomorrow.

Business leaders have dismissed the strike plans as suicidal and mail-order and retail companies have been lining up alternative contracts to handle the seasonal flood of online orders. Royal Mail managers are recruiting 30,000 temporary workers to help to keep the mail moving.

As the strike took hold, union leaders stepped up their attack on the Business Secretary over his role in the dispute. Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers' Union, dubbed him "the minister without responsibility", while others accused him seeking revenge for the failed part-privatisation of the service.

The attacks also came from within his own party. Colin Burgon, the Labour MP for Elmet, joined the picket line at his local mail sorting centre in Leeds and and said that Lord Mandelson was still smarting over the backbench rebellion which derailed his plans to bring a private sector partner into the Royal Mail.

"It's quite clear that there's been a concerted effort by the management and certain leading figures in the Government, Lord Mandelson for instance, to provoke this action when they should be using their energies to conciliate and get Acas involved, " Mr Burgon told The Times.

"This is Lord Mandelson's revenge for our defeating him a few months ago over his plans to privatise the Royal Mail."

Workers who gathered from before dawn outside the main London sorting centres also took pot-shots at the Business Secretary, accusing him of waging a "vendetta" against union members. Pickets waved banners and flags, with slogans including "Defend Our Postal Services", and "Protect Our Pensions", attracting hoots of support from passing motorists.

"None of us want to be here but we aren’t concerned about what the public think, because ultimately they want the same as us," said John Humphries, 45, who has worked at the Nine Elms sorting centre in Wandsworth, South London, since 1984.

"If changes are not made, the service will change for the worse. Lord Mandelson does take some blame. His problem is that he is trying to get his own back because it has been impossible to privatise us completely. He has a vendetta."

Lord Mandelson said he deeply regretted the strike decision, adding that industrial action was not in the best interests of the Royal Mail, the workforce or "hard pressed" consumers and businesses.

At Birmingham’s main Royal Mail centre in Aston, union leaders said they hoped that all its workers would join the picket line throughout the day. Steve Reid, of the Birmingham district branch of the CWU, said the way workers had been treated was "appalling" and said he hoped the strike would bring about a resolution.

"People are saying we are against modernisation as a union but we are not," he said. "Sixty thousand jobs have gone from this business in the last five years in agreement with the union. That’s not a union against modernisation. What we want to do is get Royal Mail fit for the 21st century, but it’s got to be through agreement, not dictatorship or imposition."

Up to 42,000 mail centre staff and network drivers were expected to join today's strike while tomorrow's could involve as many as 78,000 delivery and collection workers. The union is set to announce further strikes after hopes of reaching a last-minute deal collapsed.

Dave Ward, the CWU deputy general secretary, said today that he believed a "form of words" had been agreed during marathon talks earlier this week, but claimed that the progress was "wiped out" by a last minute intervention from the Royal Mail managing director Mark Higson.

Mr Ward told GMTV that Lord Mandelson had "misrepresented" the dispute and was "frankly telling untruths". He claimed that the minister was affected by the collapse of his plan to part-privatise the Royal Mail, adding: "He is putting personal setbacks in front of settling the dispute."

Kenneth Clarke, the Shadow Business Secretary, said the Conservatives would privatise the Royal Mail if they win the next general election. Mr Clarke said the company needed private capital and private management to bring it up to date.

"We propose to bring in private capital, assuming it is not in too disastrous a state by next May," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Mr Clarke said that the Royal Mail was becoming a "total disaster" and attacked Gordon Brown for "changing his mind" over the stalled part-privatisation plans.

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