THE Queen’s speech and what it showed about the state of the Conservative party and the Prime Minister were debated by columnists in the newspapers.
The Guardian
Rafael Behr said the state opening of parliament ‘dramatises a persistent delusion in British politics’.
“The Queen makes a speech listing a bunch of proposed laws and MPs pretend that this is what it means to govern,” he said. “The myth is that declaring the intention to do something is most of getting it done.”
He said the Queen referenced ‘levelling up’ opportunities across the UK - but plenty of Tory MPs are ‘anxiously scanning the economic horizon’.
“They know there is pain coming to a jobs market that has been anaesthetised by the furlough scheme,” he said. “Many Tories have already pencilled in May 2023 for a general election.
“[The Queen’s speech] is the prelude to a period of incoherence and stasis, during which the prime minister finds, yet again, that he is no good at governing, doesn’t enjoy it and would much rather be doing what he does best, which is elections.”
The Daily Express
Leo McKinstry said the Tories were the masters of reinvention.
“Under David Cameron, they were the party of austerity, determined to rebuild public finances,” he said. “Today under Boris Johnson, they have become the party of state intervention as they preside over the recovery from Covid and the embrace of Brexit.”
He said they had widened their appeal to the working classes in traditional Labour heartlands.
“By facing Leftwards on economic policy and Rightwards on social policy, it is building a new blue wall across the Midlands and North,” he said.
“The speech set out a solid raft of measures. In the Commons, the PM exuded a new sense of confidence, dominating the chamber with his ebullience and humour.
“Even after 11 years, there is no sign of the Government running out of steam.”
The Independent
The paper’s leader column said the Queen’s Speech was ‘a characteristically exuberant, boosterish text that Boris Johnson had prepared for her majesty, albeit overladen with tendentious claims and party political bragging’.
“It was indisputably upbeat about “bouncing forward”, as the prime minister likes to say. There was plenty about high-speed broadband, high-speed rail, high-speed planning approval, and even high-speed buses.
“There was no hint that the current cradle of the coronavirus emergency economic support will be retained beyond the autumn. When the furlough and the other schemes are closed, a boost to infrastructure investment will be needed like never before as unemployment climbs.”
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