The Queen's head could become a thing of the
past if the new web-based stamps take off.
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesForty years after he first proposed it, Tony Benn's wish has finally been granted - the Queen's head has been removed... from stamps, that is, or more accurately from web-based print-your-own-stamps, available today from the Royal Mail.
Instead of Her Maj's head the new download stamp carries a barcode. The Daily Mail and its readers are apoplectic. The airbrushing of the Queen ends a 160-year tradition, the paper says, and raises questions about whether the Royal Mail can continue to use the word Royal in its title. (Perhaps it could swap names with the Daily Mail). What the paper does not point out is that business mail has been sent for years without the Queen's head, and without such fuss.
