At least the Queen has spared us President Blair

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/02/at-least-the-queen-has-spared-us-president-blair

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Polly Toynbee’s tirade against the monarchy, as usual with such tirades, does not suggest what we should put in its place (Let Elizabeth reign until the end – then stop this charade, 1 September). Perhaps we can dispense with a head of state altogether? The only state to do that in modern times was Gaddafi’s Libya. The obvious alternative is a president, but as I wrote nearly 10 years ago (theguardian.com, 21 April 2006), there are several models of president on offer. Which does she choose? To update what I wrote then would it be the French/US model: winner takes all (President Cameron, President Corbyn)? The ancient Greek model: popular vote (President Clarkson, alas too late for President Savile, President Toynbee)? The modern Greek model: find a politician who’s no threat to anyone (President Skinner)? Or the Russian model: outgoing president picks incoming president who then picks him back again (President Cameron, President Osborne, President Cameron)?Oliver Miles

Oxford

• I passionately agree with Polly Toynbee on most things. However, her views on the Queen, and others, deserve scrutiny. I write as a socialist and as, at heart, a republican. Nevertheless I am thankful that Elizabeth Windsor has ruled the roost rather than some of those likely to have become president in her place. President Thatcher gives me the heebie-jeebies and I’m not sure how I’d feel about President Blair. Elizabeth has shown extraordinary commitment, courage, adaptation, patience and stamina, and merits esteem not least because it was never on the cards that her family would get the top job anyway. Then there was the war.

I’ve written to her once or twice – about intervening in the miners’ strike and about a play we commissioned, Shakespeare’s Queen Elizabeth II, for the cultural olympics. Each time I got a courteous, intelligent and well-reasoned reply. Perversely, I also rather enjoy her son upsetting the media and others with his personal – often spot-on, often way-out – insights into anything under the sun. Off the hymn sheet, no soundbites, these irritations are a good antidote to the abundance of self-righteous pomposity. I wrote to him too – about trying to save a theatre from closure. He replied, supportively, instantly. We never had a similar response from anyone called secretary of state for culture. I look forward to the republic. But until we ditch the mediocre contenders, let’s hang on to those we’ve got – and Liz especially.Ian FlintoffDirector, Pitchfork Production, Oxford

• Without wishing to detract from Polly Toynbee’s splendid republican piece about the blandness of our Elizabethan epoch, I must point out that her description of The Young Elizabethan doesn’t do that excellent magazine justice. Its contributors were enlightened and often radical, its illustrators were inspirational, not least Robin Jacques and Ronald Searle, and its competitions were unique. Generous cash prizes were awarded every month for inventive articles, poems and cartoons. I personally won a small fortune, including for a piece called How To Make Two Orange Boxes Out Of An Old Desk, which I both wrote and illustrated, and which earned me £5, which was good going for 1957.Mike LeighLondon

• Like it or loath it, for many people over a certain age the institution represents a rare line of continuity in a confusing, diffusing milieu. And no, I’m not talking about the empire or colonies. It’s more hard-wired than that; it’s crap but comforting cuisine, your first Meccano set, moral certainties, safety. All fondly amplified illusions, obviously, but that’s not the point. Most people need a better reason for change than “what if”. The republican tendency is going to have to come up with something more credible and substantive than sunny uplands before the majority begin to take it seriously.Jim McDermottWoodford Halse, Northamptonshire

• The last Labour government broadly asked the right questions about our constitution. For example: we don’t allow our head of state to interfere in parliament, then why should anyone with a hereditary title be allowed to do so? From this question evolved the abolition of most hereditary peers. Last week, David Cameron demonstrated a worrying level of blindness to the one question left unanswered by Labour: if legislation by hereditary right is wrong, what of legislation by patronage? Labour also separated the legislative and judicial functions of the House of Lords by creating the supreme court. Rather than abolishing the monarchy, I feel that fellow leftists like Polly should focus on these constitutional questions rather than on an institution without any real power.Kevin HindBury St Edmunds, Suffolk

• It’s odd that so soon after exhorting Labour voters not to support the “unelectable” Jeremy Corbyn (theguardian.com, 13 August), Polly Toynbee should advocate a policy that would only stand a chance of being introduced under his leadership.Kate FrancisBristol