IoS letters, emails and online postings (10 May 2015)

As a reader of The Independent on Sunday since its inception, I am aware of your position on the monarchy but I take exception at your refusal (almost) to report on the birth of the new princess (“Baby sleeps through her debut in front of the world’s media”, 3 May). It is a newsworthy event and to relegate it to a tiny mention, after pages of idle political gossip, is pretty disgraceful. I don’t expect a 16-page pull-out but I do expect more acknowledgement of such a good news story.

Are you advocating a republic for the UK? If so, you will have lost this reader. Surely I am not alone among your readers.

David Chaplin

Haddenham, Buckinghamshire

I do admire The Independent on Sunday but when the heir to the throne has a new baby it seems very rude of you to bury that fact. Any good republican would join with me in sending good wishes to the happy parents. You would do that for a neighbour, even if you disagreed with them on everything else. For just one happy moment, we should ignore Cameron, Clegg, Miliband and Farage and join the rest of the nation with celebrating the new princess on the front page.

Lighten up!

Jed Falby

Budleigh Salterton, Devon

Today I bought your paper for the first time. I just could not face the fawning, sycophantic articles, endless pictures and multiple pages about the royal baby in all the other newspapers. Bad enough the never-ending headlines on the television. But I am so grateful for the birth, as I now have found a newspaper that I actually read right through. From now on I shall be buying your paper.

Stephen Mousley

via email

I read Lisa Markwell’s column, and thought that, with this, the newspaper just about remained true to one of its founding principles, of bare, factual reports on Windsor family events. I was then shocked to see a report and photograph on page 29. I am most disappointed and let down.

I would like to see the newspaper start a debate on the disestablishment of the monarchy, and the form of institution to replace it as head of state more appropriate to the modern era.

Don Thomson

London W13

Jane Merrick includes Diana Gould’s memorable torpedoing of Margaret Thatcher in 1983 over the Belgrano affair in her debunking of the notion of “women’s issues” (3 May). A point well made. But, sadly, it simultaneously undermines her other point: that if the main parties were led by women, “all the obfuscation and evasion would be swept away by straight talking”. Mrs Thatcher’s “talking” was no straighter than what emerges from the current endlessly cautious male majority in Westminster. Nevertheless, more women in politics? Yes!

Aubrey Waddy

Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire

Michael Calvin’s comments about the takeover of football by arrogant financiers with little interest in the game’s traditions (“The new breed who have no idea what loving a club means”, 3 May) resonate far beyond the realms of sport. What he says could be applied equally to politics: here, too, the making and manipulation of money has pushed other concerns to the sidelines.

As a result, we have a recovery where people in work have to queue at food banks in the same way that premiership football gets richer by the year while the national team continues to decline due to the grass roots being starved of funding. Is it any wonder that voters and football supporters alike are becoming ever more cynical and disengaged?

Adam Colclough

Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire

Though I’m a member of a political party, I was pleased to see you not telling us who to vote for (“Go with your convictions”, 3 May). Readers of a quality paper are not fools, and you do well to give us the options for us to make up our own minds.

Tim Mickleburgh

Grimsby, Lincolnshire