The first king’s speech in more than 70 years was a clear sign that an old order was passing. But it is not King Charles who is being left behind. He opened parliament in full dress admiral’s costume and made a speech – large parts of which are at variance with his well-known views. But the monarch read the room and fulfilled the role that precedent demanded. The prime minister showed no such astuteness.
Politics is changing. But Rishi Sunak is not, and hence finds himself struggling to remain relevant. His attempt to set the national agenda and fix the terms of debate with the monarch’s address will fail to catch the attention of the public because his plans are out of step with voters’ priorities. His party is exhausted and divided. The Tories are heading for electoral defeat. The government programme read out on Tuesday will do little to change that.
It was a speech that paid lip service to fixing a broken NHS, and was laced with bromides about economic growth – things that voters care about – but made the king absurdly intone about ending “the scourge of unlicensed pedicabs”. There are some welcome changes, such as a regulator to operate a licensing system for professional football clubs. But the good is dwarfed by the ugly.
Despite gaining no bounce in the polls with anti-green measures, Mr Sunak will introduce more into the Commons. New rounds of North Sea licensing for oil and gas exploration do not need to be held each year because ministers can hold them any time they want. The only reason for such stunts is to put clear blue water between the Conservatives and Labour, which has pledged to award no new licences if elected.
It seems an entirely forlorn hope that the speech will establish dividing lines that the public will recognise. Voters aren’t likely to notice the measures in the address until they begin to make an impact on their lives. Because there isn’t much time left before the general election, they won’t. The peroration does allow the government to “go public” with its agenda. But many voters will also look at the elaborate, feathered flummery – an invented tradition from the imperial Victorian age – and wonder what it has to do with them.
While there is no formal bargaining between the executive and the legislature, unlike in the US, there is an internal negotiation between the executive and the governing party’s MPs over its plans. Viewed from this angle, the speech was more interesting for what it did not say than what it did. There is an argument to be had over whether Mr Sunak’s proposed new powers to tackle begging will do any good, but they are immeasurably improved by not including Suella Braverman’s performatively cruel plan to restrict charities from giving out tents to homeless people.
Britain needs new ways of running Westminster. Even parliamentary language harks back to a time when the Commons was full of affluent “gentlemen”. Today in a highly partisan atmosphere such words appear little more than cheap talk.
The next government should perhaps look to use its first king’s speech to say that it will stage a national conversation about whether we need the robes and rituals to announce its programme, as part of a wider constitutional review. Mr Sunak’s error is to retreat to the comfort of old ideas when his party needs to be looking for new ones. One can only hope that a new prime minister will not make the same mistake.
