Letter: Blair `climbdown'?

Friday 04 December 1998 00:02 GMT

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Sir: Tom Marshall (letter, 25 November) says that it is "patent rubbish" to declare that the existence of a non-hereditary head of state renders a country democratic. Quite so, but he then goes on to say that, as everyone in Britain has a vote, that makes it a democracy.

Universal suffrage may be a prerequisite of democracy, but it is no guarantee of enfranchisement, without which any "democracy" is a sham. Everyone in the former Soviet Union had the vote.

GEOFF PEARSON

London E3

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Letter: Blair `climbdown'?

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