Constitutional monarchies enjoy a healthy advantage

John Bishop, in his column in yesterday morning’s Press (Say no to King Charles), produces a diatribe against the personalities of the royal family and conveniently forgets about the advantages of a constitutional monarchy versus the disadvantages of a constitutional republic.

The list of constitutional republics starts with Angola and finishes with Zimbabwe, and the entries in between contain few functioning democratic countries.

The list of constitutional monarchies, while starting with Australia and finishing with the UK, contains most of the functioning democracies in the world including our own.

These countries are also wealthy and stable.

What is the secret?

The top job is not available! This simple fact does not allow the despot to be elected and then become a dictator, as happens to so many republics.

Has Bishop looked at the mess that South Africa and India are in? Gordon Macadam, Moncks Bay

Bishop misses mark

The view expressed by columnist John Bishop yesterday, is exactly the sort of reason that we should leave things as they are in New Zealand.

It appears that he has gleaned all his information about Prince Charles from the press and passed judgment on a man he obviously knows nothing about.

Prince Charles is called a twit because he has been trying to do something about climate change for over 30 years.

The fact that he is one of the most hard-working of the royals, raising millions a year for charities, is also always omitted by the Murdoch press which has done most of the smearing.

Bishop describes Prince Charles as a spoiled embarrassing man boy!

How judgmental is that? It is not true at all.

If we do decide to control our own destiny, let it not be by biased and largely misinformed people like John Bishop.

Jean Brandt, Amberley

No proper lead

I entirely agree with your columnist, John Bishop, about the unsuitability of Prince Charles for the top job in the Commonwealth.

But let us think more about the struggling Poms.

If the Queen does not hang on much longer, they may be ruled by two idiots – Charles and the dreadful Boris Johnson.

Surely no country, let alone one with such a proud history of humanist principles, balanced law and worldwide justice, should ever be permitted to lapse into something more akin to a South American state, with no proper lead from the top.