Wee Ginger Dug: State opening of Parliament was a royal mess

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Today is the state opening of the Westminster Parliament, the centerpiece of which is the King's Speech, an occasion when the British establishment indulges itself in full fat flummery.

A bored-looking monarch on a throne drones their way through a turgid speech replete with the hang 'em and flog 'em and drilling for oil measures which Rishi Sunak hopes will allow him to claw back some of the polling lead enjoyed by the equally turgid Keir Starmer, who is currently trying to prove that he can outdo Tony Blair in the warmongering stakes.

As Charles's horse drawn carriage made its way to Westminster from Buckingham Palace, the excited presenters on Sky News used the words tradition and traditional more often than a drunk Glaswegian uses the f word, and with much the same semantic effect.

We should at least be happy that for once, the hypocritical royal, who for all his supposed concern for the climate has an enormous carbon footprint, was actually using an environmentally friendly form of transport.

Like so much of the royal pageantry which is presented to us as tradition, the pomp surrounding the state opening of Parliament dates back only to 1852, when the Palace of Westminster was opened, despite the claim on the Parliament's official website that the ceremony dates back to the fourteenth century.

There have been openings of Parliament attended by the monarch for many hundreds of years, but these were often far less deferential affairs than today's exercise in pseudo-mediaeval sycophancy.

Although the ceremony is supposed to highlight the independence of the power of Parliament from the monarch, it really serves to mask the very real power and influence that the monarchy retains over legislation.

The monarch has the right to vet every piece of legislation in advance in order to ensure that it does not impinge upon the privilege and wealth of the royal family.

The entire charade achieves the exact same as the Scottish First Minister's speech to Holyrood, announcing the Scottish Government's programme for government. It could just as easily be done by Rishi Sunak announcing it in the Commons, but then he might have to answer questions, and that would never do.

The speech itself was a threadbare and uninspiring affair. If this was Rishi Sunak's grand plan to overturn Labour's lead in the opinion polls, then he's already lost the next general election.

For all Sunak's claims that his government remains committed to carbon reduction targets, one of the key announcements in the speech was a licensing bonanza for new oil and gas field development in the North Sea. You know, the same oil and gas which Scotland was assured in 2014 was about to run out.

There was nothing in the speech about helping people struggling with the soaring cost of living, and nothing to make a real difference to the housing crisis.

The speech contained provisions to attack the rights of trade unions to take industrial action with a measure which will force unions in certain sectors to guarantee "minimum service levels" effectively undermining the point of industrial action.

Government 'running out of ideas'

Roz Foyer of the STUC attacked the plans saying: "Clearly running out of ideas and in a grotesque attempt to frame this legislation as reasonable, the Tory UK Government’s plans for Minimum Service Levels are a shambolic, unmitigated attack on our movement that not only undermines devolution but undercuts our democratic right to strike.

“It’s clear they are absolutely running scared of the collective action of empowered workers and know fine well that their scapegoating of our movement will not last."

She called upon the Scottish Government not to comply with the new legislation and urged the Labour Party to stick to its commitment to abolish it should it form the next Westminster government.

Yeah, good luck with getting Keir Starmer to keep a promise.

The SNP's Westminster contingent is reportedly in discussion with left wing Labour MPs about how to force a vote on calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as the death toll in the hostilities on both sides exceeds 11,700 – 1400 in Israel and over 10,300 in Gaza.

The SNP are reportedly due an Opposition Day debate in the Commons next week, although this could be postponed, and this debate could be used to force a vote on a ceasefire. Around one third of Labour MPs have called for an immediate ceasefire.

These notably do not include the new Labour MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West who promised before the by election that he would not be Keir Starmer's puppet. How's that working out, then?

First Minister taking a stance which differs from the British Government

Meanwhile Scottish Tory MSP Stephen Kerr is continuing to be his usual graceless and unpleasant self. Kerr reacted furiously to a tweet from the First Minister calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, angrily insisting that international diplomacy is not the First Minister's job and insisting that there are dozens of issues which demand the First Minister's attention.

Apparently taking five minutes out of his day to compose a tweet about an issue which has seen thousands of people die and which moreover directly affects members of the First Minister's own family is a dreadful dereliction of duty in Kerr's book. That's never stopped Mr Rent a Quote Tory MSP from pontificating on social media about things which are not his job.

Of course, Kerr's real issue is that the First Minister is taking a stance which differs from that of the British Government and in so doing displays an understanding of compassion and humanity which is alien to a Conservative government whose stock in trade is performative cruelty.