London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Jul 26, 2025

Queen’s speech preview shows a government scrabbling around for ideas

Queen’s speech preview shows a government scrabbling around for ideas

Analysis: List of expected bills appears shot with contradictions, trying to keep red wall and blue wall onside
Tuesday’s Queen’s speech is meant to be a relaunch for Boris Johnson’s beleaguered government, against the backdrop of a deep cost of living crisis, and with Tory backbenchers still divided about his future.

But if the advance briefing is anything to go by, this is an administration with little fresh to offer.

A “bonfire of red tape” is certainly not revolutionary: Gordon Brown had the Hampton review and the Better Regulation taskforce; George Osborne had his own “bonfire of red tape”, not to mention a “Red Tape Challenge”.

With the benefit of hindsight, most such efforts are widely viewed as worthy, but incremental.

Of course, freed from the shackles of the EU, the government has more wriggle room to make regulatory change; but the examples given by Boris Johnson during the leave campaign – the size of olive oil bottles and the packaging for fish – underline the modest scale of what is likely to be possible. Such tweaks would also almost certainly be dwarfed by post-Brexit border bureaucracy.

Some bills will enact crucial but long-promised changes, such as reform of the school funding formula, or ensuring Companies House, the official register of companies, combats fraud.

Other plans, such as the levelling up bill, giving local authorities the power to force landlords to rent out empty shops and take control of empty buildings, appear modest, but are clearly designed to deliver the changes “red wall” voters may hope to see if they are to stick with Johnson at the next general election.

A new British bill of rights, meanwhile, allows the government to keep one of its favourite culture wars, the battle against “lefty lawyers”, burning brightly, while Channel 4 privatisation would cheer the party’s rightwingers.

But the overall sense, as with mooted plans for tackling the cost of living crisis that included two-yearly MOTs, is of a government scrabbling around for ideas.

Part of the difficulty, for an administration which has never had much of a guiding purpose beyond Brexit and keeping Johnson in power, is knowing what its electoral constituency is.

In Friday’s local election results, the Tories received a kicking from the Lib Dems in the south, amplifying the warning signal sent by the Chesham and Amersham byelection last year.

So the list of expected bills appears shot through with the contradictions of trying to keep north and south, red wall and blue wall, onside.

Hence the toned-down planning reform mooted by Michael Gove at the weekend: gone is the no-holds-barred approach drawn up by his predecessor, Robert Jenrick, that was intended to disfranchise Nimbies and lead to a drastic increase in housebuilding.

Instead, local authorities will apparently be given more latitude in applying housing targets; and Gove was full of soothing talk of small-c conservative developments such as Prince Charles’s favourite, Poundbury in Dorset.

While Conservative campaign headquarters sources continue to deny that an autumn election is even a remote possibility, there is also a whiff of Lynton Crosby’s notorious advice to David Cameron to “get the barnacles off the boat”, too.

Gone is the ban on foie gras and fur, it appears – and gone, too, the employment bill that would have strengthened workers’ rights, but perhaps couldn’t be easily shoehorned into the theme of levelling up.

Plenty of legislative time will also be taken up working through bills carried over from the last parliamentary session – including on animal welfare and online safety.

It remains to be seen whether Johnson can fashion a coherent narrative out of Tuesday’s pomp and ceremony. But as after Rishi Sunak’s spring statement, there is a clear risk that again, the main impression is of a government that has failed to grasp the scale of the crisis at hand.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Deputy attorney general's second day of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell has concluded
Controversial March in Switzerland Features Men Dressed in Nazi Uniforms
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
Thai Civilian Death Toll Rises to 12 in Cambodian Cross-Border Attacks
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
×