quinta-feira, 22 de junho de 2017

State opening of parliament a crowning humiliation for Maybot


State opening of parliament a crowning humiliation for Maybot
John Crace

With most of the Tory manifesto dumped after the general election the Queen was able to rattle through her speech

@JohnJCrace
Wednesday 21 June 2017 19.20 BST Last modified on Thursday 22 June 2017 00.50 BST

The crown wasn’t at all happy. Normally it got to sit on the Queen’s head; now it was made to ride in a separate limo. The Queen also didn’t look best pleased by the lack of pursuivants, heralds and ladies of the bedchamber. Her expression never rose above the miserable throughout. Still, at least she was able to make a statement of sorts by wearing a hat in the style of an EU flag. Suck on that, Maybot. There were even empty seats in the Lords. A threadbare state opening of parliament for a threadbare government.

It was all done and dusted in little more than 20 minutes. The longest part was the wait for Black Rod to summon all the MPs from the Commons. Her majesty looked up briefly to check the body language between the Maybot and Jeremy Corbyn. Not good. Come to think of it, the sexual chemistry between the Maybot and her own party wasn’t much better.

The lord chancellor handed the Queen a copy of the speech. Brenda flicked through the largely blank pages with a mixture of distaste and disbelief. Was this all the Maybot could come up with after delaying the state opening by a couple of days. “My government will ...” she began, her eyes beginning to close.

It turned out that what her government would be doing most of was dumping large parts of the manifesto on which it had been elected. Out with grammar schools, out with scrapping free school meals and the winter fuel allowance, out with the dementia tax, out with energy price caps. Damn it, the Maybot was even reneging on her promise to reinstate fox hunting. That was the one bit of the speech the Queen had actually been looking forward to.

After limping her way through a series of vague commitments on Brexit along with a promise to unite the country – good luck with that one, she thought, you can’t even unite your own party – Brenda hit the home straight. “My government is committed to ...”. To scraping the barrel with a whole load of vague promises on space travel and electric cars that had been made in previous Queen’s speeches.

“It’s almost enough to make one want to abdicate,” the Queen muttered to Prince Charles, who was standing in for the unwell Duke of Edinburgh, on the way out.

“Great idea, Mummy,” said the Prince of Wales, his ears perking up.

“Only joking. Let’s fawk awf to Ascot.”

With the Queen safely at the races, the Commons reconvened two hours later to debate the speech. As is customary, proceedings began with two speeches from backbenchers. As isn’t so usual, these were neither sparkling nor witty. Perhaps Tories Richard Benyon and Kwasi Kwarteng had decided it was more appropriate to live down to the occasion and keep things dismal.

Jeremy Corbyn stood up and paused. So many open goals, so little time to score them. He eventually opted to begin on a serious note with the Grenfell Tower fire and the terror attacks, before going on to wonder if it was not a little unusual not to implement any of the key promises in a manifesto. A manifesto that had been deleted from the Conservative website only that morning.

This was a new energised and empowered Corbyn and the Tories didn’t quite know how to react to him. For years they had been treating him as a joke; now they were being forced to accept he was a possible future prime minister. They didn’t seem to like it much. Corbyn did ramble a bit towards the end, but you can’t blame him for getting carried away. The way things are shaping up, there’s going to be a lot of days in parliament when he gets the better of the exchanges. Without even needing to be particularly good.

There was a desperation to the roar which greeted the Maybot from the Tory benches. A primal scream of despair. The Maybot only confirmed their fears. After an OK start, she rather fell apart. She didn’t seem to know much about Brexit. Or anything else, for that matter. She just went back to her tried and tested method of saying nothing of any meaning till everyone tuned out. Maybots are as Maybots do.


When Labour MPs pointed out that the election hadn’t actually gone that well for her and she couldn’t do a deal with the DUP, never mind 27 EU countries, her memory files crashed. “I won, I won,” she cried. The expressions on those around her suggested otherwise. Freewheelin’ Phil grimaced. Boris yawned. Their time would come.

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