SIR – Senior Tory Lord Young thinks that alarm about the cuts is a fuss about nothing.

While our millionaire Prime Minister has reluctantly dismissed this dinosaur, he has revealed a similar capacity for being out of touch by pretending that a public holiday to celebrate a royal wedding will dispel the economic gloom. Not so, it merely adds to it.

Membership of the Republican Campaign has increased since the announcement of the wedding as people revolt against the idea of even more public money being frittered away on our already subsidised monarchy.

And before anyone tells me about the tourist benefits, I’ll give you republican France, the tourist Mecca, where the palaces are wide-open and full of visitors. The wedding is just a timely reminder that monarchy, the last feudal hangover, is long past its sell-by date.

Quentin Deakin, Newark Road, Crossflatts, Bingley