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It’s unforgivable

My admiration for the Queen knows no bounds.

I love my freedom to do what I like when I like, admittedly enhanced due to retirement – but I suspect the younger readers get my point regarding their free time from the drudgery of work at the weekend.

We all like dressing up on the odd occasion but, for the rest of your life on a daily basis, with a set timetable – no thanks. My point is regarding the Prince Harry and Meghan Markle debacle.

I loved both my grandparents in the close community of the East End of Glasgow I was born into. I still do in my heart, although they are long gone.

How can this young man Harry, not so young at 35, treat his grandmother at 93 in such a disgraceful uncaring fashion? Never mind the fact that she is Her Majesty the Queen. It shocks and astounds me.

Regardless of the difference of wealth, privilege or social class, there are no excuses, no pardon on my behalf, for this unforgivable conduct to an old lady who has served our country and its best interests for 68 years.

Bill Williams, Merlin Way, Covingham

Raise your voices high

The strident cries that the public voted for and settled Brexit in the December election are misleading.

In fact around 54 per cent of the public voted for parties offering a second referendum, whereas only 46 per cent voted for Brexit supporting parties. So if this last election is to be interpreted as a second Brexit referendum then Remainers won it by a larger majority than Leave did in 2016!

The voting patterns in our first past the post system are a grossly inaccurate interpretation of what the country actually thinks.

This time it threw the Johnson/Cummings regime an 80-seat majority with just a few hundred thousand extra votes in the right places either way.

In fact, during the last 20 elections the Tories won, the majority vote was against them 19 times, but with lots of thinly-populated Tory constituencies the more progressive metropolitan centres were not heard. We are amongst a minority of developed countries who hang onto our 19th century voting system; it suits the Tories, anyway!

Now we’re locked into a virtual parliamentary dictatorship, where the Tories can force through their plans to oppress our so called democracy even further by enacting ‘electoral reforms’ in their own favour which will make them even harder to get rid of, and clipping the wings of the judiciary, so there’s even less control on the run away power of the executive, and the all powerful, shadowy figures behind them.

Cummings is now pulling money from the government PR department to set up a even more state-of-the-art film and social media propaganda, with no scrutiny and seemingly less legal controls. With our new very far right, ultra-capitalist version of our Tory party in complete lockdown (for now), things seem hopeless for Remainers and progressives everywhere except Scotland and Ireland at the moment. They are not.

The right wing will overreach itself and as the contradictions of Brexit become more apparent. In a couple of years, the Johnson/Cummings edifices will begin to crack.

Remainers and progressives everywhere need not feel obliged to go quiet. ‘Healing the nation’ does not mean ramming something down more than half the population’s throats.

You can raise your voices high and continue to make the case for the things you believe in and feel to be right. One day you will be heard. That’s true democracy.

Steve Rouse, Wroughton