Monarchy is an affront to equality

May I reassure your correspondent, Colin Bullen, that republicans have no need of rejuvenation.

The opposition to the monarchy is not a matter of individuals or personalities. It is a matter of principle and fundamental rights.

If one believes, as I do, that every person on Earth is born with the same rights to a life of fulfilment in every sense, health, happiness, respect and satisfaction, then the concept of royalty is unacceptable.

Royalty implies that one individual, or family, is supreme and of greater importance than any other.

On this basis we have all the divisions within society created by wealth and the

ownership of property. If there are those who have a super abundance of these, then there must be those who are deprived of them.

Thus the whole of society is forced to compete which inevitably leads to war, persecution, crime and injustice. If nothing else, what the Covid crisis has taught us is that the most important people in society are not the financiers, the businessmen, the politicians or the so called leaders of society. The most important people are those who have enabled society to function in these desperate times.

The nurses, care workers, cleaners, shop workers, bus and train crews, food preparers and distributors.

All those sectors of the economy who are treated abysmally, on low wages, zero hour contracts and left to struggle against economic necessity.

If ‘democracy’ has any meaning and I have my doubts as to whether it now has any use as a term, then society must respond to the reality that exists.

Having an elite group, living in palaces, does not signify a culture of equality.

The Covid crisis give us an opportunity to assess what is really important in society.

Just what do we want for future generations?

My optimism rests with our younger generation, far from being badly educated, as your correspondent suggests, these young people, despite the attempts by successive governments to undermine their education, are proving to have a much better idea of how society should function than those who choose to criticise and condemn them.