SIR – In a democracy we must, of course, celebrate the right of Republican protesters to wave their vaguely offensive but puerile banners during the Jubilee celebrations.

The one that caught my eye was the deliciously fatuous one that asked ‘1 Queen or 9,500 nurses?’ Quite apart from any views that could justifiably be expressed about the often-clumsily inefficient, overstuffed, unresponsive leviathan that is the NHS, if democratic sentiment were to undergo the seismic shift required to fall in line with Republican sentiment, we would not, in any case, end up with 9,500 more nurses. Hands up, who is in favour of 6,000 more ethnic diversity co-ordinators and President John Prescott?

Mike Pollard, Shipley Conservatives, Otley Road, Shipley