After 13 years of Tory rule, is this it?

There were no big surprises in the King’s Speech today. That’s a shame.

Rishi Sunak and his ministers like to insist their agenda for the next year is an ambitious one. They’re making ‘difficult but necessary long-term decisions to change this country for the better’, as read out by the King to parliament. Yet the legislation put forward seems miles away from the priorities of voters – not to mention the many problems facing the country.

Some of those issues were mentioned at the start of the speech. Lip service was paid to ‘increasing economic growth’ and taking ‘action to bring down inflation’, two of the Prime Minister’s pledges set out at the start of the year. Neither is going especially well. Both pledges currently look like they will be met on a technicality, but at least they stand a chance of being met, unlike the other three. 

But what then followed was a string of bills with no clear, cohesive vision: tougher sentencing rules, changes to leasehold properties, a ban on cigarette sales for the next generation and a crackdown on the so-claimed ‘scourge of unlicensed pedicabs in London’ (James Heale has the details here).