Prince Charles’s Queen's Speech Deconstructed | Comment

May 11, 2022 • The Times cartoonist Morten Morland provides an alternative take to Prince Charles delivering the Queen's Speech for the first time.

Criminalising Our Right to Protest’: Green Groups’ Anger over Public Order Bill

THE GUARDIAN: Measures in Queen’s speech would have outlawed protests that won votes for women and legalisation of unions, say critics

Environmental campaign groups have hit out at the “draconian” protest crackdown bill announced in the Queen’s speech.

The new law appears to be targeted at groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain who have used disruptive methods to draw attention to the climate crisis.

Announcing the bill, Priti Patel said: “As the Queen’s speech outlined, the public order bill backs the police to prevent antisocial protests from disrupting people’s lives.” The home secretary hailed the “new criminal offences for ‘locking on’ and interfering with national infrastructure, and serious disruption prevention orders for reoffenders”.

The new criminalisation of “locking on” is aimed at protesters who handcuff or glue themselves to infrastructure, a favourite tactic of green protest groups. Insulate Britain demonstrators made headlines last year after glueing themselves to major roads, and Extinction Rebellion members have previously handcuffed and glued themselves to trains, causing disruption.

People who go equipped to lock themselves or others to buildings, roads or printing presses will also be committing an offence under the new bill. Extinction Rebellion members have previously targeted printing presses, delaying deliveries of national newspapers including the Telegraph, the Times and the Sun. » | Helena Horton, Environment reporter | Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Inane and Orwellian: a Queen’s speech to improve the life of Boris Johnson: Prince Charles cut a pathetic figure, selling a flimsy, sinister package designed to protect the prime minister, not to address Britain’s problems »

In full: Prince Charles delivers Queen’s Speech for the first time »

Video: Keir Starmer responds to meagre Queen's Speech »

Queen’s Speech ohne Queen: Erstmals lässt Elizabeth II. das Programm der Regierung in London von Thronfolger Charles vortragen. Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei die Preissteigerungen im Königreich. »

Der Premierminister muss jetzt liefern: Boris Johnson wollte etwas für die „kleinen Leute“ tun. Viel hat er noch nicht geschafft – was auch an der Pandemie lag. Aber zur Halbzeit der Legislaturperiode muss der Premierminister allmählich liefern. »

GUARDIAN EDITORIAL:

The Guardian view on the Queen’s speech: Boris Johnson fails to deliver for voters: The prime minister’s programme seeks fights to mobilise his base instead of tackling the cost of living crisis »

No Carriages and a Solo Throne – the Covid-compliant Queen’s Speech

THE GUARDIAN: There were just 34 seated guests in the royal gallery, socially-distanced, wearing masks – and tested

There were no horses or carriages and the Queen sat alone on her throne at the state opening of parliament, with pomp and pageantry pared back because of Covid restrictions.

The Queen, on her first engagement outside Windsor Castle since the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, wore day dress instead of the usual state robes.

In the House of Lords, she sat on a solitary ornate golden throne, where, previously there have been a pair of thrones, one each for the Queen and her consort.

Because Prince Charles, who escorted her, was to be seated separately because of the restrictions, it was felt it was not necessary to transport the consort’s throne to the Palace of Westminster for the occasion. Instead, it remained as is does when not in use, stored in the care of the lord great chamberlain. If, at the next state opening, things are back to normal and Charles is seated next to the Queen, it will be back in place. » | Caroline Davies | Tuesday, May 11, 2021

The Queen opens parliament in scaled down ceremony – video »

David Cameron's House 'Fracked' by Protestors

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Greenpeace protestors turn the Prime Minister's country home into a 'fracking site' in protest at new pro-drilling laws, the environmental group reveals

David Cameron’s country home is being "fracked" by environmental campaigners in protest at new laws which could clear the way for more underground drilling, Greenpeace revealed.

Activists in hard hats and high-vis jackets turned up at the Prime Minister’s Oxfordshire cottage and began sealing off the property’s front gate before erecting a sign which read: “We apologise for any inconvenience we may cause while we frack under your home”, the group claimed.

The Greenpeace members also tried to deliver a giant cheque for £50, which is the maximum compensation ministers are willing to pay individual home and landowners to allow companies to drill under their properties.

Greenpeace said the stunt was a protest against legislation expected to be announced in the Queen’s Speech later, clearing the way for fracking firms to drill under people’s land and property without their permission. » | Miranda Prynne | Wednesday, June 04, 2014

A Queen's Speech Ruined by Absurd Anti-immigration Measures
This panicky response to Ukip's rise is wrong on commercial, economic and even the narrowest of party political grounds

Read the article here | Ian Birrell | Wednesday, May 08, 2013

New British Government Outlines Goals


Queen Elizabeth Opens New Parliament

The Queen’s Speech


THE TELEGRAPH: Queen's speech point by point >>> | Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Philip Johnston: The State Opening Reminds Us of the Unique Flexibility of the British Constitution
The Queen makes her way to Parliament. Photo: The Telegraph
TELEGRAPH BLOG – PHILIP JOHNSTON: It was heartening to see that after 13 years of Labour “modernisation” the State Opening of Parliament retained all the pomp and circumstance that we as a nation still do so well. Funnily enough this great pageantry and its ancient rituals date all the way back to, well, 1852. Although the symbolism — such as taking an MP hostage and keeping him in Buckingham Palace until the Queen returns, or searching the Palace of Westminster for gunpowder — deliberately evokes our history, the form of the State Opening is relatively recent in origin. >>> Philip Johnston | Tuesday, May 25, 2010

THE INDEPENDENT: Queen's Speech lays out radical agenda for coalition >>> PA | Tuesday, May 25, 2010

David Cameron Attacks Labour After Queen's Speech
THE TELEGRAPH: David Cameron renewed his pre-election attacks on Labour following the Queen's Speech, claiming Gordon Brown had left the country in an ''appalling mess''.



In his first major speech at the Commons despatch box since becoming Prime Minister, Mr Cameron clashed with Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader.

His comments followed acting Labour leader Harriet Harman's response to the Queen's Speech from the Opposition front bench.

Mr Cameron said there was ''something missing'' from her speech: ''Not one word of apology for the appalling mess that has been left in this country.

''Nothing to say about leaving Britain with a deficit that is bigger than Greece's.

''Not a single idea for getting to grips with it.

''Until they learn what they got so badly wrong I'm not sure people are going to listen to them again.''

Mr Cameron said the Queen's Speech was the first in 65 years from a coalition government.

"It is a Government not driven by party interest but by the national interest, with clear values at its heart," the Prime Minister said.

"The values at its heart are freedom, because over the past decade the state has become over-mighty and civil liberties have been undermined consistently... >>> | Tuesday, May 25, 2010

No-holds Barred Cameron Ditches Queen’s Speech Etiquette
TIMES ONLINE: David Cameron ignored the traditional niceties of the Queen’s Speech debate today to tear into Labour’s record in office and complain that Gordon Brown’s Government had left the country in an “appalling mess”.

The Prime Minister’s vitriolic attack in his first Commons appearance of the new Parliament raised eyebrows on a day when MPs usually act as though they can rise above party politics.

Speaking after Harriet Harman, the acting Labour leader, gave a gently chiding response to the introduction of the Lib-Con legislative programme, Mr Cameron said there was “something missing” from her speech.

“Not one word of apology for the appalling mess that has been left in this country. Nothing to say about leaving Britain with a deficit that is bigger than Greece’s. Not a single idea for getting to grips with it,” he said.

“Until they learn what they got so badly wrong I’m not sure people are going to listen to them again.” >>> Philippe Naughton | Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Vision Offered by the Coalition Government in the Queen's Speech Will Offer Little to Help Victims of the Cuts
THE TELEGRAPH: It's a new nation under the coaltion government – but be warned: the newly poor will need a voice, says Mary Riddell.

Tomorrow, with all due pomp and pageantry, the Queen will tell Parliament that her Government will exercise "freedom, fairness and responsibility". Her speech, rooted in 500 years of tradition, will herald the birth of a modern nation.

The legislative programme outlined by Her Majesty is the gateway to a Britain in which children play in streets uncluttered by CCTV cameras and superfluous immigrants. These pupils, heading to sumptuous schools set up by (non-working?) parents, may walk past JobCentre Plus branches packed with benefit scroungers being shoehorned into gainful employment. Any anti-social elements disturbing the civic calm will be swiftly dealt with by our newly-politicised police. What happy days.

I do not mean to parody the Con-Lib agenda. Scrapping ID cards, curbing the excesses of the surveillance state and electoral reform are welcome and overdue. Even so, the upbeat pitch of today's proceedings stands in stark contrast to yesterday's.

The £6.25 billion cuts outlined by George Osborne sounded modest and, in some cases, positive. We can all sign up to a bit of quangocide and an end to first-class travel by civil servants. But these are the surface grazes before tax cuts kick in and the axe falls on the 300,000 public sector jobs threatened by efforts to cut the £157 billion budget deficit.

As the age of austerity dawns, the government is unfurling two contradictory visions of Britain. One is of a settled country reclaiming equality and freedom. The other shows a future so divisive that its strictures may rupture our tacit social contract and threaten civic peace. Obviously, cuts are essential, and Labour profligacy has made them more so. But the Coalition, still in its honeymoon, is being allowed to draw a veil over the pain to come. >>> Mary Riddell | Monday, May 24, 2010

EU Crisis Makes Cuts Imperative Says Clegg As Queen's Speech Is Leaked
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on the Andrew Marr show. Photograph: The Sunday Times
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Public spending cuts have been made imperative by the crisis in the eurozone, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said today as the new coalition Government prepared to start chipping away at Britain’s record £156 billion deficit.

Years of Labour “throwing money around like there was no tomorrow” had left a “black hole” in the country’s finances, he said.

Mr Clegg’s scathing assessment of the outgoing regime came as George Osborne, the Chancellor, prepared to announce tomorrow where the axe will fall for his first £6bn of cuts — most of which will be ploughed straight into paying off the deficit.

Having backed Labour’s assertion during the election campaign that cuts this year would jeopardise the fragile economic recovery, Mr Clegg told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show that turbulence in the eurozone had lent a greater urgency to balancing Britain’s books.

“I don’t think anybody could have anticipated then quite how sharply the economic conditions in the eurozone would have deteriorated and that the need to show that we are trying to get to grips with this suddenly became much greater,” the Liberal Democrat leader said.

“That is why we need to show at a more accelerated timetable than I had initially thought that we are going to get to grips with this great black hole in our public finances.

“The outgoing Labour Government was just throwing around money like there was no tomorrow, probably knowing that they were going to lose the election, making extraordinary commitments left, right and centre, many of which they knew they couldn't honour.

“So not only are we going to have to deal with cuts, we are also going to have to actually deal with some of the pledges that the Government made in the past which they didn’t even provide budgets for.

“The age of plenty where money could be thrown around in almost carelessness, which is what the outgoing Labour Government has done for some time, now is over.” Read on and comment >>> Sadie Gray | Sunday, May 23, 2010

Queen's Speech Sets Out Election Battle Lines
THE TELEGRAPH: The Government has unveiled its final legislative package before the General Election, with the Queen's Speech containing pledges to help the neediest pensioners and crack down on excesses in the financial sector.

The unashamedly political address made clear to the public Labour's "aspirations" for a fourth term, including free care in old age for the elderly, and action on child poverty, according to Lord Mandelson, the First Secretary.

Speaking ahead of the speech on BBC Radio 4's today programme, Lord Mandelson denied accusations that this year's speech was lacking in substance.

With less than seven months before the country must go to the polls, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, put forward a series of populist bills designed to set out election battle lines in what is the final legislative programme before next year's vote.

As well as ensuring free personal care for 280,000 elderly and disabled people with the highest needs, there were guarantees on health care and schooling as well as a crackdown on "risky" bank bonuses.

With parliamentary time running out, few, if any, of the streamlined package of around 15 new bills stand much chance of making it to the statute book before Parliament is dissolved.

The Queen told the assembled MPs and peers: "My Government's overriding priority is to ensure sustained growth to deliver a fair and prosperous economy for families and businesses, as the British economy recovers from the global economic downturn. >>> Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent | Wednesday, November 18, 2009



TIMES ONLINE: Queen's Speech: 15 Bills, but only 33 days left of Parliament >>> Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent | Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Britische Regierung will Staatsdefizit halbieren: Regierungserklärung von Queen mit traditioneller Thronrede verlesen
NZZ ONLINE: Die britische Regierung plant für das kommende Parlamentsjahr ein Gesetz zur Halbierung des Staatsdefizits und zur Begrenzung der Sonderzahlungen für risikofreudige Bankmanager. Diese Absicht gab die Queen in ihrer Thronrede bekannt.

Traditioneller Pomp: Die Queen beim Einzug in das Oberhaus vor ihrer Thronrede. Bild: NZZ Online
Die alles übertreffende Priorität meiner Regierung liegt darin, in der gegenwärtigen Phase der Erholung von der globalen Rezession ein nachhaltiges Wirtschaftswachstum sicherzustellen und eine faire und florierende Wirtschaft für Familien und Geschäftsleute zu ermöglichen», hiess es in der sogenannten Thronrede zur Eröffnung des neuen Parlamentsjahres.

Zugleich mit der Reduktion des Staatsdefizits soll das soziale Netz enger geknüpft werden, besonders für bedürftige Rentner. Dies sind einige der Kernpunkte in Premierminister Gordon Browns alljährlicher Regierungserklärung, die am Mittwoch nach alter Tradition von Königin Elizabeth II. im Londoner Oberhaus verlesen wurde. Viele Beobachter werteten die Erklärung vor allem als Wahlkampfmanifest der Labour Party. >>> ap | Mittwoch, 18. November 2009

WALL STREET JOURNAL – Photogallery: Queen’s Speech Opens Parliament: Royal pageantry met hard-nosed electioneering as Queen Elizabeth II donned the diamond-encrusted Imperial State Crown to announce the government’s plan for the next parliamentary session >>>

Related WSJ article >>>

Oh Gawden! Now You’ve Gone and Done It: ‘President’ Brown Casts Aside 150 Years of Protocol
DAILY EXPRESS: GORDON Brown outraged traditionalists yesterday by delivering his own version of the Queen’s Speech.

The Prime Minister cast aside more than 150 years of Parliamentary protocol to announce his Government’s plans for the next 18 months in the House of Commons.

In true presidential style, he unveiled 23 proposed Government Bills, including a pledge to build three million houses in an attempt to ease the shortage of affordable homes.

Many MPs were astonished by his decision to usurp the Queen’s annual visit to Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament in November.

In the past, the contents of the Queen’s Speech have officially remained secret until delivered by the Monarch in the House of Lords. ’President’ Brown Snubs the Queen (more)

Mark Alexander