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

IT WAS interesting that you should choose Rupert Murdoch to administer your coup de grace against the Royal Family. I suppose he represents "today's reality" and the "triumph of the people". Give me an old-fashioned Queen any day.

A hereditary monarchy can do much to balance and keep in check the arrogance and greed of a "meritocracy", if that is the right word for people who get rich by asset-stripping or publishing grubby papers. Our monarchy has become a represent- ative of the ordinary man in the congregation of the "gifted". What your prescription lacks is warmth and family feeling. This, our Queen, because she is reserved, decent and representative of enduring values, successfully supplies.

The press has been consistently unfair to Prince Charles. He is ahead of his time in his understanding of interlocking environmental and spiritual issues.

Is it too late for you to reconsider your dreary plan? Why not consider instead how to help the monarchy evolve so that it can continue to warm, strengthen and deepen us in this age of shifting fashion and uncertainty.

Godfrey Meynell

Derby