WELL, IT TOOK THEM TWO YEARS...

But, they've done it. 


Please, please, before they return us to the 1910s, can we be a separate nation with a social conscience and a care for people outside the the top 2%?

State Opening of Parliament in England: Let's Hope that it's Value for Money

So six months before we were due to do it all again, this morning Her Majesty the Queen made her way in procession in a coach to the House of Lords (she is the Duke of Lancaster after all, so maybe that earns her a place there) and reads a speech prepared for her by Prime Ministers David Cameron, Nick Clegg and their teams.

For the second time in 12 months the show of fabulous wealth, of a crown whose sale would go a fair way to clearing our debts and save millions of people suffering deprivation, is given to the people from all over the world. The best we can hope for is that, as it’s happening at this time of the year, thousands of tourists in the London will be treated to a real live view of the Queen in her finery, as she rides to Westminster.

How much will all this cost? It seems ironic that this Queen’s Speech which is all about austerity; all about cutting to pay back the unimaginable debt that the last government and its mates, the City, got us into, should be flanked at both ends by this display of grand wealth. Doubtless millions of people catching snatches of it on tonight’s tv news will be warmed by that memory when they are shivering next winter, out of a job and with less social security money to keep them from hunger and cold.

The Queen will introduce the theme of David Cameron’s Big Society, according to The Times, saying that the measures will herald a stronger and fairer society that encourages individual and social responsibility. Small government is good of course, but the fear is always there that those less fortunate are left unprotected, while the rich pay for the services that the state would have provided.

The Queen will highlight the Government’s priority to reduce the deficit and restore economic growth and to accelerate the reduction of the structural budget deficit, with five Bills from the Treasury. It’s bad news then that the last quarter’s figures actually showed even smaller growth than the one before.

There will be measures to block the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions; return supervisory powers over the City to the Bank of England; and set up an Office of Budget Responsibility, all of which sounds sensible to me.

Another theme is expected to be “freedom, fairness and responsibility”, with Nick Clegg’s Bill to get rid of Labour legislation opposed by the Tories and Liberals over the last years, including the rolling back of the “surveillance state”, scrapping ID cards and regulation of CCTV cameras and DNA. Again, I can’t argue with any of that. I just hope that where the cameras are removed, there will be suitable policing, as cameras were often a cheap method of crime control.

Legislation requiring referenda on future treaties of the EU is also anticipated and, in my opinion will mean that the UK will end up blocking all future movement on the union for good or bad.

A pensions and savings Bill is thought likely to restore the link between pensions and average earnings, which, nearly 40 years after Thatcher removed it, is welcomed. The misery and poverty that that measure has caused over the years is incalculable, but of course none of it ever hit the millionaire Thatcher.

According to The Times we can also expect legislation to provide compensation for victims of the collapse of Equitable Life and to provide support for armed forces families along with, very rightly, much domestic English legislation. It’s a pity that the parliament will not bring forward legislation to create an English parliament.

COMPLETE WASTE OF THE QUEEN'S MORNING

"What is the point of this Government? What else has he got to do? This is the shortest Queen's Speech since 1997. They have run out of money, they have run out of time, they have run out of ideas and we have just seen from the Prime Minister they have run out of courage as well."


So said David Cameron after the Queen delivered the Speech from the Throne today. What indeed David?

Apparently the centre piece of the legislative programme, which in itself is a bit of a farce on the basis that only 30 days of legislative work in the House of Lords exists between now and the last possible date of the next election, is an obligation to halve the government’s massive deficit, without there being any actual means by which this may be achieved.

Lord Mandleson, who seems to be the de facto Prime Minister these days, explains, with a straight face, that the legislation will enshrine in law a duty upon this and future governments to act in a fiscally responsible manner. Yeah, honestly, he said it with a straight face. He also indicated that taxes would have to rise to pay off the huge debt. No? Surely not?

So, we are all going to have to pay out more of our hard earned cash, leaving us with less to spend, in order that the likes of the Royal Bank of Scotland can continue to refuse to lend us our own money and continue pay its executives massive bonuses. Up until now, of course, it has all been a bit pie in the sky. We have known that the banks had been irresponsible and that they were paying themselves massive amounts in bonuses and that we had had to give them unimaginable amounts of money, but we weren’t personally feeling the pinch for it. Well, get ready to.

Hilariously after a stall of many years, there is to be some further movement in constitutional reform. You see, in the midst of the crisis that we find ourselves in, we are going to be able to find parliamentary time to allow Life Peers to renounce their titles. Not very important you might think, until you remember that one such Lord is a certain Peter Mandleson who might wish to stand for parliament. Well, we can’t have mere law getting in the way of the career of Peter Mandleson.

Truly, this republican felt sorry for Her Majesty today, having to get all dressed up in a long frock at 10 o’clock in the morning, put that huge crown on her head and read out that self serving drivel.