A vision of the Queen's Speech
Her Majesty's most Gracious Speech, as sticklers for parliamentary protocol like to call it, has always been a curious piece of political oratory. The speech is, after all, hers in name only. The script is her government's. This year's Queen's Speech will be curiouser still. Why? Because we already know most of what it will contain. Not thanks to pre-briefing or spin but thanks to a Brownite constitutional innovation - the pre-legislative statement or draft Queen's Speech delivered by the prime minister himself in the summer.
We cannot, therefore, expect too many surprises today. There will, as promised, be bills to enable more homes to be built, to extend the time young people stay in education and training and to give MPs more power over going to war and public appointments.
If surprise is too much to ask for what about "vision"? That's a question posed by Gordon Brown's friends and foes alike. The answer is that it is probably too much to ask for. Do not misunderstand me. I make no comment on Mr Brown or his visionary qualities. I merely note the limits of a speech which is - for all the efforts to make it appear to be more than this - simply a list of the bills the government plans to pass over the next Parliamentary year. The pledge to pass the Coroners Bill must, after all, sit alongside grander declarations of intent. Year in, year out overarching themes or titles are grafted onto these lists of course ("Investing for the future", "Building a stronger Britain" ...you know the kind of thing). They are, though, usually no sooner uttered than forgotten. And Gordon Brown's not too worried about that.
What he wants from the Queen's Speech may be revealed by one of the images of the day. Besides the pomp - the carriages and tiaras; besides the parliamentary peculiarities - the door to the Commons being slammed in the face of Black Rod; we watchers of politics will study the body language of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition as, for the first time, they walk side by side from Commons to the Lords to hear the Gracious Speech.
David Cameron and Tony Blair smiled as they chattered about whether the PM had seen the portrayal of himself in the film "The Queen". As it happens, he hadn't. Brown and Cameron, though, don't do small talk. Indeed, if it were down to Brown they won't do much talk at all.
The Prime Minister sees today less as a chance to outline his vision and more about exposing the choice between him and his opponent. Or, as he would have it, between the long term thinking Britain needs and short term electorally driven opportunism. His message will be "This is how I think education or health or the constitution needs to change to prepare the country for the next 20 years - what would HE do ?" His aides say that unlike Tony Blair he is not looking for issues where he can take on on his own party. He wants, instead, to take on and defeat the Tories on what he calls the Big Arguments.
The loudest and longest parliamentary arguments of the forthcoming session may be on other things - on the EU Treaty and new terror laws. Expect another fierce - non party - debate - on abortion too. And lest that not seem lively enough, the government will signal, although not spell out the details of, legislation to come on immigration and party funding.
Her Majesty's script will, I hazard a guess, speak of the need to build a national consensus. A consensus between Brown and Cameron? After today's speech? Now that is too much to ask for.
UPDATE, TUE 10:20 AM: For those who like the pomp more than the politics, take a careful look at Jack Straw who will today become the first non-peer to hand the Gracious Speech to Her Majesty (he is the first MP to be Lord Chancellor). Rumour has it that this one-time radical plans to walk backwards after handing over the text - a tradition abandoned by his predecessor Lord Irvine .
I'm 
Comments
Nick,
You write "Or, as he would have it, between the long term thinking Britain needs and short term electorally driven opportunism."
So when he bottled it because of a bad poll, was that the long term thinking Britain needed?
I agree that the next session of Parliament is unlikely to be dominated by arguing over new homes being built (although Labour's plans certainly don't add up). Trust in the government and economic chaos are more likely to dominate the headlines.
Gordon Brown is a deep thinker and private man but this doesn't mean he can't recognise positive efforts from other people or wish them well. Policy confusion and partisan behaviour don't strike me as something he's terribly interested in, and behind the clunking fist and turf wars, I strongly suspect, Gordon Brown just wants to see things run well and everyone get along. Developing a happy nation that's at ease with itself and on good terms with its neighbours would fit, and if his own party and the opposition parties can roll with that, I'm sure some consensus will develop.
If my judgement of Gordon Brown is correct, he will never ever tolerate his authority being questioned but he's perfectly capable of letting people rise to aspirations and weld together as a team. He's laid down the major bullet points and, I'm sure, has a lot of things he'd like to see rolled out during his leadership but I expect him to relax over time and only take a strong forward position when it's absolutely necessary. Indeed, by creating space for success to unfold naturally, blessed leaders love will touch all, flowers grow in his footsteps, and the heavens descend to earth.
Well, its an opinion.
The thought ocurred to me was that it would a pleasent surprise is the Queen said 'my government will introduce nothing new - just work on making the previous committmrents work ' Well you can dream can't you ?
GB has a nerve to talk about vision and suggest that he alone has it, and you are naive to talk this up.
Don't forget that it was Brown who chickened out of an election only a few weeks ago, after leading his troops almost to the battlefield, and stole the Tories' policies on inheritance tax when these started looking popular.
No, there is no vision, only narrow political advantage and spin.
This "vision thing" can be overrated. One defintion of a vison is "a manfestation of a hulucination", and some would argue that this government is halucinating on many fronts. GB should be concentrating more on the "trust thing".
The Queen's speech is once again full of 'waffle' and false promises by a government that is so far removed from the people they might as well be living on Mars.
The Queen SHOULD be announcing some of the following. My Government over the coming year will:
Pull all the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Set up (along with other nations) a peace keeping force to ensure lasting PEACE across the globe in places like Afghanistan and Darfur.
Half the defence budget and use the money saved for the NHS.
Adopt a more 'healing' NHS, by finding cures for diseases, rather than paying drug company's billions of pounds to simple suppress symptoms.
Stop government waste and half all MP's salary's and expenses.
Scrap Trident immediately.
Stop the building of ANY new nuclear power stations and adopt new clean free energy such as Zero Point Energy.
Try for crimes against humanity all those who continue to hijack this country and its banking system.
My english teacher would be rolling in his grave. I was taught never to start a sentence with a conjunction, "Or" I would be in trouble.
Mr Hardwidge,
You are entitled to your opinion.
hi nick
i wonder what the queen speech would be like if it was her who wrote it? at least then we wouldn't know whats in it months before which i spose makes today rather pointless. however the political battle ahead is huge i believe that the education bill and maybe housing could give brown a battle on his own side let alone the other
thats one thing thats not changed with blair gone is the labour left rebels
as for the counter terror bill i take the view that 56 days would be ok if the tories get all the things they have put forward if that can be done then i see no reason why it shouldn't be supported. but i can see browns first commons defeat looming if i was a betting man
You seem to be putting the thoughts in our mind that Her Majesty the Queen is somewhat superfluous in this event - "Brown has already given the speech, the Queen's speech is not hers, but Brown's, Straw being the first MP as Lord Chancellor etc".
Are you sowing the seed for Republicanism here ?
Brown wants constitutional change, and it appears that you are dipping you toe in the water to test the temperature for him. Wlii you be his food-taster when we really get back to 'feudal' times ?
It is a lie to say that Brown/Darling stole the tories' policy on Inheritance Tax.
They allowed couples to get what they could already get, but without an expensive trip to a solicitor, and extende this retrospectively to widows and widowers, and intend to increase the individual limit to £400,000.
The Tories merely promised to make the individual limit £1m.
Why lie?
Well they have their reasons, perhaps they like being embarrassed.
It's a pity 'Spitting Image' is not still on (showing my age here) because one wonders how GB might be portrayed. That would have given DC something to talk about as they walk together. DC could always talk about how their respective teams did in the Rugby World Cup - but then wasn't GB supporting England as well? Any suggestions for small talk subjects between GB and DC?
Disappointing to see Jack Straw reverting to the medieval custom of not turning his back on the monarch. The ceremony is gorgeous - but do we have to return to craven deferential to a mere human.
Bills, bills, bills.
Yes, we the English people know all about bills, especially those from the Government, in the form of taxes, the cumalative effect of which is to nibble away a little bit more of your families freedom.
If you step back a little and look at what Parliament does, it in effect, acts as a conveyor belt, pushing out endless 'laws', which is very handy if you work in that field.
Most English people don't.
We are merely reminded of Atticus :
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws".
"David Cameron and Tony Blair smiled as they chattered about whether the PM had seen the portrayal of himself in the film "The Queen". As it happens, he hadn't."
Supposedly, neither the Queen nor it appears our Tone has seen the movie in which they are both portrayed, quite positively as it happens. Anyone else find that quite surprising? Surely they can't be that busy..
Some of GB's policies are ok, others are pure fantasy (much like comment No 7 above, talk about extremist views!).
Why do we bother with the Queen's Speech, apart from tradition? It should be renamed the PM's wish list.
Gordon Brown engaged MacCamaroon on Pakistan we are told - he is a serious politician, no need for small talk advisors when in procession wiht his justly loathed opponent.
No surprises, of course. Glum Gordon is the past master of announcing every initiative at least three times in an attempt to fool us that he is actually doing something.
The speech was like the government, bereft of any meaningful ideas and utterly bereft of any vision.
I do so hope GB sees Her Majesty again really soon...
I feel sorry for Her Majesty having to read out all that drivel, but I would like to be a fly on the wall back at the palace when the Duke says what he thinks about it all!
It would be even nicer to have some acknowledgement in the speech that much of the contents (mainly the unpopular bits) won't apply to the constituents of the Prime Minister's home town. Democracy is a dead duck at present in England, and it's time somebody fixed it.
# 20 "Democracy is a dead duck at present in England, and it's time somebody fixed it."
When the English people come to understand that it is not in the interests of any of the mainstream political parties to 'fix it', then we English will see a step change.
Until that day occurs, English people will continue to labour under a sham democracy.
Jonathan Freedland has a more sober and long-winded on the Queen's speech but we're hovering around the same point. The Prime Minister is doing very well under the circumstances and, I'm sure, this will be more obvious as events unfold. Execution is everything.
Apparently at least 20 of the 26 bills announced will apply to Scotland.
As Scotland has long had a different system of education, law etc these resentments are bizarre, and solely mischievous.
If English Tories want Scottish remedies perhaps they should move north?
I seem to remember that the Conservative Party long ago abandonned Scotland, no longer fielding "unionist" candidates.
I assume that they now intend to abandon unionist sentiment there solely to the Labour and Lib-Dems.
As analogies involving pipes and tobacco are now presumably unnacceptable and moderation can be astringent, would those angling for the breakup of the Union, so there is somewhere the Tories might one day win a majority, kindly apply to anywhere they have which smokes?
Surely Her Majesty could have summarised half of the speech in two sentences:
My government shall force me, through the limitations and specifications placed upon my authority in the Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown, 1689, to repeal in its entirety clause 29 of Magna Carta. In the interests of national security, the right of the Freeman to trial before imprisonment shall be indefinitely suspended; in the interests of diplomatic expediency, we shall sell the Right and Justice of the Freeman to the Officials of the European Union.
It's simply astonishing how many people are unaware of the ancient rights and liberties, enshrined within law, that we are losing piecemeal to this government. Going off the tone of the Queen's Speech, the name Jacqueline Smith will be synonymous with that of Henry Addington by the end of this Parliament.
It is about time it was called "Prime Minister's Speech." I am sure Queen hates reading these speeches in her name.
@ Martin, (#1)
well, deciding not to hold an opportunistic general election can hardly be called short-term opportunism, so make up your own mind...
@ John Constable (#15)
The UK tax burden is actually not that great by Western standards.
Parliament is directly elected by us so who would you suggest is better qualified to make the laws?
The UK is ranked quite highly as uncorrupt in Transparency International's annual reports.
Nick - could you tell us if today's speed fine measures are in the Queens speech of just a day or two ago?
I don't recall it but then I can't confess I paid much attention to the spin and rhetoric that the spech is. Seeing as the measure affects so many and is of such importance as to be a headline announcement by the Govt, presumably it must have been. Musn't it ?
The worse thing about the Queens Speech was, that by preempting it, Gordon Brown had not only altered yet another piece of the constitutional furniture for a momentary gain, but rendered it pointless.
He really is a political incompetent (he did after all let Blair outmanoeuvre him for over a decade, and hadn't got the gumption to make a challenge, even when Blair was fatally wounded), and has blown any reputation he had out of the water by his inactions since.
The fact that he just keeps reannouncing the same figures over and over again as "New" means that no one listens or cares anymore.
Most of us are a bit embarrassed to find that, after all his wait to get the top job (his destiny), he's just not up to it, and now we just want him to go quietly.
Would Andy Kelly be one of the fantasists who are rtying to talk Chief Commissioner Sir Ian Blair out of his post too?
What an ongoing disapointment he must be expecting all round.
I suppose it is what apsses for political comment in soem quarters . . .
It does make this sort of discussion rather a Big Brother's house sort of affair though, doesn't it?
Not even all the tories who post agree with Central Office friendly blogger David Kelly on this one.
In fact a mjority of conservatives with a small "c" most probably shape up behind Gordon Brown, albeit few yet have much enthusiasm.