Letters - Thursday, June 17, 2021

Should the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have used the Queen’s pet name ‘Lilibet’ in naming their new daughter?

Definitely not.

I have a nickname that only close family and friends use. It is Jinny or Jin for short. I love it but would hate any of my family to use it as it is personal to me, not to be shared or exploited as I feel it is to be with this unthoughtful pair.

The Queen is linked to whatever they do now – whether she likes it or not.

They have been complaining about the parenting skills of Charles and his parents, and then they name their daughter after someone they have been blaming.

It doesn’t make sense but, from a marketing ploy, it is brilliant.

Will they stop at nothing for self-promotion?

They should not be allowed to use their titles to promote books or talks.

They have not earned them and should not use them for self-glorification.

You wonder what they will do next and then they do it.

They should now just get on with their ‘fairytale’ life and stop causing trouble for their family.

It beggars belief when Meghan goes on about the special bond between father and son. What happened to the bond with her father which now seems to be non-existent? Unbelievable!

Janet Berry via email

When I first heard the name of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s baby, I thought it was a sweet name and, I presumed, a hopeful sign of a possible reconcilliation between the couple and the rest of the Royal family.

Now I no longer know what to think.

To be fair, it’s not really my business – the couple want a private life and I am happy to leave them to it.

However, the Queen is elderly and has been recently widowed. The pandemic should have taught us all that life is short.

I hope they do reconcile while they still have a chance.

Ava Bantam

Lancashire

DISASTER

It is time we got justice for the dead

On June 14 2017, we at Blackpool and Fylde Trades Council found it difficult to take in the news at our monthly meeting that a fire had broken out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower flats in West London, killing 72 men, women and children.

What made it worse is that the deaths were entirely preventable. But failures by companies, a Conservative council and a Tory government which turned a blind eye to what was going on, all contributed to these deaths.

The survivors and their families will not be silenced.

In any decent society the companies which refurbished that high-rise death trap and politicians who didn’t care must be held to account.

Four years later 23,000 households in this country are still living in homes that are flammable.

It is time now for all decent folk to pressure government to do the right thing and take responsibility for removing all flammable cladding as soon as possible.

We must be firmly on the side of all those seeking justice for dead.

We at Blackpool and Wyre Trades Council also stand with the firefighters who ran towards Grenfell when others were going the other way and now scandalously get scapegoated by all guilty parties.

Royston Jones

Anchorsholme

ROYALTY

I’m reminded how blessed we are

The Queen’s appearance at the G7 summit, followed by Her Majesty hosting President Joe Biden and his wife Jill at Windsor Castle, was another reminder that we’re blessed to have such a wonderful monarch as our head of state.

Imagine if we were a republic under the British equivalent of Emmanuel Macron or Donald Trump? Like a President Tony Blair or a President Boris Johnson? I think not.

Henry Cobden

via email

RESPONSE

Decision was not made by university

Unfortunately, Hilary Andrews (Your Say, June 12) inadvertently misrepresents the facts regarding the decision to remove a picture of the Queen in Oxford.

The decision was not a decision of Oxford University.

It was a decision taken by the postgraduate students at Magdalene College (a student residence) about a picture that previous students had hung in their common room in 2013, which is the equivalent of a tenant deciding to change a picture in his/her sitting room.

Also, as far as has been reported, there was no indication that Black Lives Matter was mentioned in the discussion about the proposed removal.

Shaun Pye

address supplied

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