You’re Kidding? Delay the Queen’s Speech Over This

It’s official. We now have confirmation that Britain’s political leaders are deliberately trying to make the UK look stupid.

Downing Street aides have told reporters that one of the reasons they need to delay by several days next Monday’s Queen’s Speech, the biggest set-piece of the parliamentary year, is that by tradition they need time to write the speech  on “goat skin parchment paper” which takes several days to dry.

This comes when leaders in Europe and around the world are already scratching their heads at Theresa May’s decision to delay crucial Brexit negotiations so she could hold an unnecessary election which left more uncertainty than ever over the next two years of negotiations. It is just an excuse for delays caused by the lack of “strong and stable” leadership then it is an excuse that makes the UK look silly.

The Government has already sent Buckingham Palace a copy of the Queen’s Speech that the Prime Minister planned to have the Queen read out next Monday, which summarises the agenda for the parliamentary year ahead that the Conservatives had planned to pursue if they had won a parliamentary majority last week.

You’re kidding?

That speech now needs to be revised because the Government needs the support of the 10 MPs from the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, and Ministers have conceded that parts of its manifesto will have to be “pruned” to win the nod from the DUP. Winning the DUP’s support is absolutely essential because a failure to win majority support for the Queen’s Speech would amount to a vote of no-confidence in the Government and the end of May’s prime ministership.

The negotiations with the DUP are likely to be finished well before the Queen is due to deliver the 10-minute speech amid pomp and ceremony tracing back to the 14^th century but that is where the goat paper comes in.

For centuries the speech was hand-written in elegant calligraphy with ink that takes several days to dry on goat skin parchment and then vellum, a high quality parchment made from the skins of kids, lambs, and young calves.

Use an autocue

Tony Blair’s “New Labour” government tried to modernise the process in 1998 but backed off in the face of resistance from one Labour MP, Brian White, whose seat of North East Milton Keyes was home to the one firm in Britain capable of making the vellum. The ancient process cost tens of thousands of pounds every year but the firm, William Cowley’s employed a handful of people and White argued that it was keeping alive an important heritage skill.

In 2013 the modernisers finally won and the vellum was replaced by an expensive thick paper marked with a “goat” watermark but that posh paper still takes several days to dry. It is then bound into a booklet and signed by the Queen as her Gracious Speech.

And that, says the Government of one of the 21^st Century’s most advanced industrial economies, is why Conservative negotiators cannot simply thrash out a deal with the DUP later this week and hand the Queen a speech written on normal paper.

 

by Peter Wilson

The post You’re Kidding? Delay the Queen’s Speech Over This appeared first on Felix Magazine.