Gary Younge (It’s not Harry and Meghan. The problem is the monarchy, 19 May) is, as so often, right when he writes: “A monarchy establishes inherited privilege at the heart of government and embeds patronage at the centre of power.” I am preparing a lecture for some very bright students from a Shanghai university on “From monarchy to poverty: social class in the UK in the 21st century”. A colleague tells me this is a frivolous and flippant title, utterly meaningless today. Maybe.
Yet in Oxford today at least 26.5% of children are living in extreme poverty, a very real measurement with tragic consequences in a city also dense with affluence. All best to Harry and Meghan, but could we please scrap such silly titles as the dukes and duchesses of Sussex, Cambridge, Cornwall, and the whole mish-mash, and see how profound and damaging are the gaping gaps between a super-privileged hereditary elite and an ever-increasing dry gulch of very real poverty and lack of opportunity for millions of Her Majesty’s subjects, otherwise known as citizens?
Bruce Ross-Smith
Oxford
• Thanks to Stuart Heritage for his suggestions of TV programmes to watch instead of the royal wedding (19 May). I found a better alternative. I took the newspaper into the garden and read everything that didn’t relate to weddings or football. (Sali Hughes – eyebrow shapers – who knew?) I completed the quick crossword, made a creditable start on the cryptic and retired hurt from the hard Sudoku when my brain encountered a logical impossibility and shut down. Good old Guardian. All this for £2.90.
I think it’s safe to go back indoors now.
Lindy Hardcastle
Groby, Leicestershire
• To paraphrase Marina Hyde (After a toxic buildup to the royal wedding, are we entertained? 19 May), it is fitting that you led your coverage of the royal wedding by repeating one of the oldest pieces of fake news on record. No woman showed her garter to Edward III while dancing – garters were not worn until the 15th century. According to the historian Richard Barber, the term “garter” probably referred to a knight’s belt. The story of the dancing lady is a much later embellishment.
Morgen Witzel
Northlew, Devon
• The main editorial (in which you describe yourself as “unrepentantly a republican newspaper”), the first opinion article, six pages in the news section, and the first seven items on your website are all devoted to that wedding. What would you have done if you were an “unashamedly royalist” newspaper?
Catherine Wykes
Derby
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