The ceremonial is magnificent.
The Imperial State Crown has its own carriage that has to share it with the cap of maintenance and the sword of state.
The officials are all there. The tabards come out of the cupboard as you see the heralds standing in line organising the procession.
The King reads his speech, the Government speech of Belgium. But what did it signify today? If anything, what was the point of it?
Because normally the big speech of the year, the one setting out the full throttled thrust of the Government, comes from the King’s Speech. It renews a parliamentary year.
But today it didn’t do that at all.
We’re faced with two options, aren’t we? One is that Keir Starmer lingers on wounded, limp, incapable of getting his policies through, and then the bills announced today won’t happen.
Or he’s removed within a few days, or the end of his time in office becomes clear within a few days and a new prime minister will have different priorities.
Jacob Rees-Mogg reacts to today’s King’s speech, as Labour face mounting pressure for a leadership challenge to oust Keir Starmer
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GB NEWS
The things involved today were what you would expect of a hard-left socialist attacking our liberties, bringing in identity through digital identity around an identity card. Getting rid of jury trial. Signing up to more European regulation.
Overriding the referendum that we had in 2016. The nationalisation of British Steel. A proposal to make more regulations hit this country through business, and an attack on property rights through undermining leasehold ownership of property.
Changes that take things from people and give them nothing in return.
More greenery coming out to make us colder and poorer if we weren’t cold enough today, on a may day of particular grimness where it hailed in London.
And you do wonder whether that hail was indicative of the state of the nation.
And what does Starmer do? Well, he meets his main opponent in a fleeting Streeting meeting of 16 minutes, when you wonder if the coffee was cold enough to drink by the time it ended.
He wants to stay, he wants to keep going, but he is powerless. He has become a vacuum. There is nothing there.
I’m afraid the King’s Speech, and I don’t want to be discourteous to my sovereign Lord, with sound and fury that signifieth nothing.