Speech failure

It is now 12 years since the Queen was first obliged to enter the Palace of Westminster and deliver a speech studded with the most awful New Labour clichés. Over the years, Her Majesty’s dismay during the state opening of parliament has become steadily more visible — and little wonder. As Labour ekes a fifth year out of this parliament, it is bowing out with perhaps the most fatuous and futile agenda of its 13 years in power. But one which, nonetheless, offers useful insights into why this government failed.

It was, as a gleeful but unnamed minister said, ‘one of the most political Queen’s Speeches in history’ — this is not something to boast about. But to Gordon Brown, governing is an act of party political violence. The notion of the national interest has been supplanted by that of factional advantage. What’s good for Britain has, in his head, become fused with what is good for Labour.