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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