The most remarkable thing about the Queen’s Speech is that at the age of ninety, be-robed and with a heavy crown upon her head she can still make it with a firm voice and faultless delivery. There is no doubt that the Monarch herself is a good deal more remarkable than the stuff she had to read. Because the first majority Tory government since whenever is even more chaotic than the last one under John Major. Whilst Major had to contend with rebellions and insurgencies, Cameron has a cabinet and parliamentary party engaged in a full, declared and open civil war. So far the war has not reached our prisons, so this neutral ground has become the centrepiece of the government’s legislative programme, even though in its present form and led by Cameron it may not survive beyond the end of June.
Only yesterday these prisons were declared in the majority unfit for purpose by the government’s own inspector and are in their worst state of anarchy, violence, drug addiction and murder than for more than 100 years. Whether these latest reforms will fare better than previous attempts remains to be seen. The record is not encouraging. The health service, much reformed, is in serious financial trouble, and its services are declining to lower levels of safety and inefficiency as every day passes; education is approaching a crisis with cuts, re-organisations, exam cock-ups, shortage of places and new teachers leaving faster than they can be replaced; there are problems with the roll out of benefit reforms which are hitting the most vulnerable hardest; power generation is on a knife edge due to a failure to renew capacity; the economic policy appears in tatters with failed forecasts, missed targets and abandoned initiatives; manufacturing is in recession; these are just the obvious headlines which ignore a vast hinterland of confusion and decay.
The most alarming bit of all is that the Tories consider themselves to be doing rather well.