Watching the Queen’s Speech closely today, it was striking how different Her Majesty’s demeanour was in her delivery of the speech from her usual style.
Theresa May’s Queen’s Speech has rightly been slated as one of the emptiest, most anodyne, blancmange-like in history – ‘thin gruel‘ as Jeremy Corbyn and others have termed it.
It has to be for her to have any chance of getting it through. So everything of note (apart from a continued attack on the disabled – apparently there are some things the Tories just can’t resist no matter the circumstances) was stripped out in the hope that it will be so bland that there will be literally nothing in it to object to.
Visionless, substanceless. Pointless.
But the Queen has been the monarch for 65 years. She’s been around the block and seen some awful Prime Ministers.
She knows how to hide her opinion. Until today.
Watching her body language closely, listening to her tone of voice, it was clear that the Queen despaired of the ‘thin gruel’ – and of the person responsible for it. Even Cameron’s shallow nonsense couldn’t shake her composure, but May managed it.
The signs are subtle, fleeting, but definitely there if you watch closely. Here’s a little example of today’s speech, with last year’s for comparison and a few pointers to help you spot the signs:
And that’s just the first minute or two. The poor monarch had to wade through ten minutes of a speech without enough substance to fill ten seconds. It can only have been by a huge effort of will that she didn’t roll her eyes at some points.
Theresa May has already set some historical precedents, including the delay of the Queen’s Speech for the first time ever. But today it seems she managed an even more noteworthy first – a Queen’s Speech so dire that even a seasoned pro like Her Majesty couldn’t quite hide her feelings about it.
And to think the Queen missed some of her favourite horse-racing event for it, too.
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In a world in which pageantry and symbol mean everything, which the Queen inhabits, she could not have expressed her unspoken contempt and disdain for May better than wearing an outfit which mimicked the colours and symbols of the EU flag. I am not a royalist but nor would I underestimate her maj, that was the most sublime, in yer face, put down ever. May looked like a bowl of warmed up pasta and definitely not the Queens favourite.
Think it’s more down to having to do the speech then get home to get changed and then rush to ascot races, meself.
Doesn’t do to interrupt ‘Askers’ , tess. Brenda is NOT amused.
But what did you expect from a tart who considered that the naughtiest thing that she ever did was to run through a field of corn. Surely she is not the brightest penny in the purse and totally unfit to be the PM?