LETTER : Can't live with them, can't live without them

AS YOU point out, "the argument for a republic has been curiously muted in this country". We could hardly, then, do better than pick up the historical threads of the argument in Thomas Paine's Rights of Man (1792). "Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy. It puts it in the most ridiculous light, by presenting it as an office which any child or idiot may fill. It requires some talents to be a common mechanic; but, to be a king, requires only the animal figure of a man - a sort of breathing automaton. This sort of superstition may last a few years more, but it cannot long resist the awakened reason and interest of man."

Alan Rooney

Preston, Lancs