To govern is not to legislate

When Her Majesty The Queen delivered her first speech to mark the opening of Parliament after the election of Tony Blair, she said, ‘My government intends to govern for the benefit of the whole nation.’ New Labour apparatchiks hugged themselves with glee, considering it a great victory that the monarch should read out such an archetypal Blairite soundbite. But who’s laughing now? The Queen’s Speech on Wednesday was the last of the Blair era, but certainly not Her Majesty’s final State Opening. Mr Blair is the tenth Prime Minister to have served the Queen, and for all the mischievous pleasure of his acolytes nine years ago, it is his time that has passed, not hers.

To grasp how much the world has changed since 1997, one need only consult that first speech. The terrorism to which it referred emanated from Northern Ireland, rather than global Islamism. Climate change was not mentioned, nor immigration. Crime merited a short paragraph. The only hint of later preoccupations came in the single sentence: ‘Preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will be a priority.’

The theme of Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech was not the brash optimism of Phase One Blair, but ‘security’, one of the Prime Minister’s fixations in recent years. Many of the 29 proposed Bills had been selectively leaked in the preceding weeks: measures to counter terrorism and crime, manage immigration and address climate change. Before Her Majesty rose to speak, Gordon Brown had reportedly let it be known via ‘friends’ that while the Queen’s Speech had his full support, he could not possibly be hemmed in by the so-called ‘Blair agenda’.