SEVERAL media commentators have remarked that the Coronation in 1953 allowed the population to express hope for a better future after a terrible world war.

As an excited and ignorant young schoolboy I was in The Mall with my father who was on leave from Hong Kong.

I doubt if many English people now believe that hope was fulfilled and perhaps, like myself, they feel betrayed.

I now know that Her Majesty's oath includes the promise to govern us "according to the laws and customs of this realm".

With the invasion of legal influences from the United Nations and the European Union, this promise has been thwarted.

How and by whom has it been thwarted?

By politicians of all parties whose "advice" to the monarch when they are in government must be obeyed.

That is the trick (or reversal of the correct situation) which "democracy" plays on a helpless monarch and an unsuspecting people, thereby depriving them of a monarch who has any power to protect them against the government. I wonder if Prince Charles, in his turn, will be asked to make the same unfulfillable promise under the glare of another media circus or will the oath have been doctored to remove the "offending" clauses?

The politicians have a tricky situation on their hands. If they try to alter it they will highlight the matter and more people may realise how they have been duped.

Better, perhaps, to stay silent and hope that few people will notice.

Martin Cruttwell,

Hamilton House,

Scrayingham, York.

Updated: 11:24 Wednesday, June 04, 2003