The news that Harry and Meghan are “stepping back” from their roles is to be welcomed (Report, 9 January). However, they will still be trading on their royal titles, so are clearly not willing to give up the accompanying prestige. Meanwhile, their wish to “carve out a progressive new role within this institution” sounds like an oxymoron. There is nothing progressive about an institution which rewards its members through birth or marriage. The sooner the entire family steps back from our public life altogether, taking the institution with it, the better our country will be for it.
Theo Morgan
Chair, Labour for a Republic
• Hurray and hurrah! The meanness afforded to Meghan from the established press, and indeed the establishment, has been appalling. It comes as no surprise that if Harry and Meghan as a couple wish to remain sane and to be able to raise a non-dysfunctional family, as well as stay very connected to Meghan’s heritage, this appears to be extremely sensible. More power to them!
Catherine Roome
Staplehurst, Kent
• How heartening to read about a young couple getting themselves off benefits and aiming for long-term employment. What a fine example to thousands of others!
Patricia Baker-Cassidy
Oxford
• You gotta laugh, ain’t ya?! Multi-millionaires step back from royal family to “work to become financially independent”.
Sue Morhall
Mistley, Essex
• A good start for Prince Harry would be to repay the £2.4m in public money spent on the refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage. Maybe give up the titles and be Mr and Mrs Mountbatten-Windsor?
Helen Evans
Ruthin, Denbighshire
• Meghxit?
Philip Mervyn
West Kirby, Wirral
• David Jones writes of becoming a monarchist in 1977 in part because he was surrounded by envious Germans (Letters, 7 January). Times must have changed. I know of no one here who would prefer a hereditary monarch to a president.
The royals are regarded with sometimes amused bewilderment – or rather, just as with Brexit, Germans think it must all be some ironic, self-parodying, Monty Pythonish thing that they don’t quite get, you know, what with having no sense of humour.
Brian Smith
Berlin, Germany
• I too find royal weddings of zero interest (Off heir! Let’s ban televised royal weddings, G2, 7 January). I could say the same about any TV soap, Crufts, Strictly Come Dancing and much besides. While the attractions of such “entertainments” is inexplicable to me, I acknowledge that they all have a wide, if diminishing, number of fans and supporters.
A royal wedding may represent the last twitchings of an irrelevant institution, but it is not a public execution or live bear-baiting. It is not actively harmful. Let those who derive pleasure from royal weddings be catered for. The last time I checked, watching programmes on TV was voluntary.
Malcolm Bowden
Poole, Dorset
• Since the BBC and ITV have declined to screen the next royal wedding, can the Guardian also commit to not liveblogging it like they did the last one?
Derrick Cameron
Stoke-on-Trent
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