Derby Telegraph

People too quick to criticise Andrew

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THE shameless criticism of Prince Andrew exposes people’s lack of knowledge about the lives of members of the Royal family.

There’s no defence, however, for his behaviour – but I can understand how a member of the family might find himself in such difficulti­es with the law.

The family has lived lonely, sheltered lives from birth, not knowing who their true friends are while having to behave like creatures in a zoo.

It’s not surprising that the road leading from the Palace of Westminste­r and Westminste­r Abbey to Buckingham Palace is known as Birdcage Walk.

Politician­s have placed the Royal Family at the centre of Britain’s democracy instead of the institutio­n of the constituti­onal monarchy.

The family should have been left able to lead at least semi-private lives and educated to be selfemploy­ed, instead of being forced to act as public relations employees.

However, any realistic hopes of changing the status quo are unlikely to materialis­e unless a political party is elected to power with the intention of replacing the monarchy with a republic: that is, the Queen, with a president. To do so would require such a government to have the Electoral Commission arrange for a convention of the people to draft a codified constituti­on which would then need Parliament’s approval and then ratified by the people who have the final say.

Only then could a government put the necessary legislatio­n to Parliament which, if approved, would trigger a (genuine) referendum, conditiona­l on being regulated by mandatory attendance at polling stations with a threshold of 50% plus one vote of the registered electorate.

The Australian­s tried that with a (genuine) referendum in 1999 but the republican­s failed to reach the threshold with only 45.13%, which makes the UK’s 37% support for leaving the EU look rather sick.

Kenneth R Jarrett,

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