One of the traditions of the state opening of Parliament is that the Yeomen of the Guard search the cellars of the Palace of Westminster for evidence of plots to blow up the government. Frankly they could have looked anywhere in SW1 and found that.
Just about the only person who seemed to be enjoying it at all was, bizarrely, Starmer
Other traditions were maintained as opposition and government MPs made their awkward shuffle to the Lords. One Labour MP shouted ‘not now Andy’ when Black Rod banged on the chamber’s door. Kemi and Sir Keir looked smiley for the cameras and pretended that they don’t loathe each other. Meanwhile James Cleverley was chatting to Wes Streeting; perhaps exchanging notes on leadership bids. Earlier in the day Streeting had been afforded a few nanoseconds of the Prime Minister’s time. The meeting had clearly not gone well, the Health Secretary maintained a look of quiet fury throughout, like a disgruntled mannequin.
Meanwhile in the House of Peers itself I counted only a handful of tiaras – clearly standards are slipping since the departure of the hereditaries. Lord Alli was making up for the lack of glitz by wearing a single diamond earring, as if he were Sir Francis Drake. The Archbishop of Canterbury sat heavily on the Bishops’ Bench, like a dropped bowl of suet.
The speech itself was incongruous, in that the King, fresh from his success in America – which was fuelled partly by his eloquence – was made to read out a civil service document filled with the meaningless jargon which the people who run the country think can be deployed instead of actual policy. He may as well have read out the health and safety policy for a regional leisure centre. In a borderline treasonous move, this government of second raters made His Majesty use the phrase “at pace”.
The King announced that we would see an improvement in ‘trust and confidence in the institutions of government’. It’s testament to His Majesty’s professionalism that he delivered this line with a poker straight face. Still, other aspects of the speech were a comfort; it’s helpful that constitutional convention in this country means that the monarch speaks of ‘My Government’, as it isn’t exactly clear who is in charge of it at the moment.
Back in the Commons came the loyal addresses. Awkwardly, the Health Secretary didn’t immediately go to the front-bench – preferring to loiter by the Speaker’s chair as Black Rod came in. Only later did he take up his seat, though not, I suspect, the one he really wanted to occupy.
The task of being the government’s nominated toady of the day fell to Naz Shah, who spoke of the success of multiculturalism, how wonderful Bradford now is, and how immigrants built it. Up to a point, comrade Copper. The seconder was Chris Vince of Harlow, who told us about having run the London marathon. I think I prefer the Commons when they’re all fighting like rats in a sack, rather than this cringe enforced conviviality. For all the pageantry of earlier, this had all the gravitas of small talk at a suburban barbecue.
Next we came to Kemi Badenoch. After the customary pleasantries and congratulations to the preceding speakers, she soon swerved towards the Labour leadership. Emily Thornberry intervened furiously. Thornberry would be imperious when buying a bottle of Tesco value Gin and a packet of Marlboro Reds, she was even more so today, the pomp of the occasion having gone to her head. “The Right Honourable Lady seeks to lecture us on why it is that everyone is so fed up with the political class, but uses this opportunity not to set out what the Conservatives would do but to lecture everybody on this side!” huffed Thornberry, threatening to escape her moorings like a very patronising zeppelin.
“Oh I’m not done yet”, purred Mrs Badenoch. She was not taking any prisoners. She implied that Labour MPs are so unpopular they’re banned from hairdressers, which is why every female minister has the same hairstyle (the Fabian bob favoured by Bridget Phillipson et al). Presumably they’re banned from wherever it is they hand our senses of humour and perspective too.
Obviously, the main topic on which she had a field day was the Health Secretary’s coup-foreplay. She complained that many of the policies in the King’s Speech, such as the scrapping of NHS England, had been announced by the Government many months ago. “But then I suppose the Health Secretary has been a bit distracted lately, hasn’t he?” (she said this in her primary school teacher patronising voice which always winds up the opposition). Wes glowered at her. “Why don’t you just do your job?” she shouted. Mr Streeting gave her a hurt and sullen look- the sort one would imagine Joan Crawford shooting at an object on which she had stubbed her toe,
“There’s no point him giving me dirty looks – we all know what he’s been up to.” This even got a laugh from Pat McFadden whose usual demeanour makes Burke and Hare look like Morecambe and Wise.
However, for the most part the faces of Labour MPs were stony as Mrs Badenoch delivered them a selection box of home truths. Most of them looked like they’d been asked to give character references for a pederastic relative. Just about the only person who seemed to be enjoying it at all was, bizarrely, Starmer, who was – unusually – quite a good sport. Perhaps like many condemned men it’s taken sight of the gallows for him to develop a sense of humour. He chuckled when Mrs Badenoch congratulated the whips for finding two backbenchers willing to support the Prime Minister and even congratulated her, saying, that ‘on dark days her input is always a ray of sunshine’.
All in all, a very strange day, reminiscent of the scene in Joseph Roth’s Radetsky March when the waltz of Austro-Hungarian pageantry turns into a conga line of mourning as it becomes clear that the Emperor has died. Everyone knows that the government is not waving but drowning, increasingly resembling a clown on life support but yet the dance of the constitution went on. It was rather reassuring to see the crown, the armed forces, the Church, the judiciary and what remains of the peerage in their dignified pomp, perhaps a reminder of what actually holds the country together even as the undignified parts of the constitution descend into final, terminal farce.
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