🇬🇧 Royal Mail new issue programme 2026.
I can not deny that my ability to predict what random issues will feature in a modern-day Royal Mail new issue programme is anything but extremely limited - last year, I correctly identified only 4 out of 16 subjects which were actually featured on the myriad stamps emanating from the official British postal service. One of them was a free pass - the inevitable Christmas set which looked spookily similar to other Christmas sets of recent years.
There is nothing, or very little at least, to make one think that British stamps are anymore intended to honour worthy national heroes, national success, national achievements and traditional national culture. Royal Mail new issues are now just as likely to give prominence to trendy aspects of foreign cultures, particularly those of North America, which look like potential money spinners to those who decide what and who should feature on the national stamps of the United Kingdom. British stamps should be a window to the world which showcases the best of British. British stamps are now just a reflection of the present ephemeral culture, often trite and historically inconsequential - not just British culture but foreign cultures.
This makes predicting future Royal Mail stamp issues a near impossibility - featured subjects will not honour that which is important in British history but that which is popular and fashionable for a few months and which would be expected to appeal to the present customer who has a short span of interest in a subject before moving on to some other trendy and transient theme.
This was my list of predictions for 2025. Pretty hopeless, I am sure the reader would agree -
Let’s see what random subjects I can come up with for 2026 -
January - Television, centenary of the 1st demonstration of television in London
January - British bridges (bicentenary of the Menai Straits Bridge)
February - Music Giants - Black Sabbath
March - British aircraft, 50th anniversary of the first flight of the Concorde
March - British reptiles and amphibians
April - British Arts (75th anniversary of the South Bank Centre and the Bicentenary of the Royal Scottish Academy)
May - 100th Birthday of Sir David Attenborough
June - Open All Hours (British television comedy 50th anniversary)
June - Puppies and kittens
July - Commonwealth Games, Glasgow
August - Summer fruits
September - British advances in medical science
October - Winnie The Pooh (centenary of first publication)
November - Christmas
December - Music Giants - Slade
Struggle as I may, I can not come up with an issue celebrating American culture - we’ve had American comics, American science fiction television series and movies, American cartoons and so on, all released with designs that manage to waft up vague British connections to the subjects. But I suppose there’s bound to be one such issue at least. We will see.
