Republican view

Helen Scott seems asks if I imagine what happens when you have a republic instead of a hereditary monarchy (letters 5 June).

Yes, I need look no further than France or America – both more economically more successful than the United Kingdom. They embraced the concept of electing a head of state hundreds of years ago.

Meanwhile Saudi Arabia and Bahrain both have absolute monarchies modelled around the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family so beloved by royal toadies.

Mrs Scott also asks me to imagine what the Queen’s working day is like. I imagine it must be extremely difficult having an army of taxpayer-funded servants to squeeze your toothpaste andmake your breakfast. It must be hard to be chauffeured around in a fleet of Bentleys to one of your dozens of palaces… after all, those ribbons don’t cut themselves.

It is a false dichotomy to say the only alternative to neo-feudalism is tyranny.

Doctors are not hereditary neither should be the head of state. The very idea that we are somehow children who are incapable of governing ourselves without the Queen and her band of hangers-on is ludicrous and insulting.

Helen Scott should consider what Prince Charles becoming King will mean: a witless Dauphin, chinless morose empty-headed crank who embraces fundamentalist Islam and crackpot medicine at the helm.

ALAN HINNRICHS

Gillespie Terrace

Dundee