Dear Baby

Union Flag

Dear Duchess and Duke,

Welcome to your baby.

And Dear Baby,

Welcome to our world.

What would be the greatest gift that your parents could give you, baby: a republic, a republic in which you, like everyone else, would be affirmed not as supreme beings, sovereigns and subjects, but as citizens, born equal?

Now wouldn’t that be grand.

Wouldn’t it be grand to free you, baby, from the tradition of monarchy that has doomed a few young men to a privileged but pointless career as a prince, waiting, waiting, waiting for destiny: the death of the father; waiting to be useful – not as a breeding machine, not as a performer in pageants that proclaim your power, but as a person with a proper job.

Those of us who are honoured to belong to that mass called The People would welcome you to live as one of us. What could be better…than to be one of us?

Yours sincerely,

Beatrix Campbell

My comrade, the amusing Tory Quentin Letts, concluded his letter to the baby thus:

“Above all”, he said, “to thine own self be true.”

“That is the point”, I said: “That’s the one thing he may not do!”

2 thoughts on “Dear Baby

  1. brian key

    Thanks for saying this so clearly , yet tenderly enough not to scare the bairn. Can only wish that it will come true one of these days.

    Reply
  2. Elizabeth Mansfield

    Lucky baby, if only he knew it, to have such a grand, welcoming letter into this complicated world, so unwelcoming to so many. Perhaps, when George is a bit bigger, he might get to read it, decide to renounce his royal heritage, and join the rest of us, in a republic? Go George! Now that would be something to welcome!!

    Reply

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