Ross Lydall: Queen's Speech will give king of Fife a chance to stand tall

Published on Tuesday 2 December 2008 21:34

I AM looking forward to today. Black Rod has allocated 18 tickets to the media to watch the Queen's Speech, and I've got one. Like the Prime Minister, I'll watch proceedings from the opposite end of the House of Lords to the throne. Unlike Mr Brown, I get a seat. But he's got the trump card. He gets to decide what the Queen says.

Let's hope it's better than his usual speeches. Somehow I doubt it, constitutional niceties being what they are. Expect plenty of warm words about "fair rules" and "strong communities".

Forget a sudden and pointed outburst from Her Maj about the greedy bankers having gambled our money away, or an admission that the 2.5 per cent point cut in VAT simply ain't going to cut the Sandringham mustard.

Instead, the ceremony will be largely that – a ceremony, and boy, they don't half do them well at Westminster. Forget the West End, today this is the best costume drama in town.

Thanks to Gordon Brown's commitment to "openness", we have a pretty good idea what will be mentioned in the Queen's Speech. Back in May, he and Harriet Harman, the Leader of the Commons, published a draft legislative programme. This set out 18 bills, all but four of them with some relevance to Scotland.

The highlights (I hope that is not a misnomer that has you accidentally queueing round the block or staring eagerly at Sky) are a Banking Reform Bill, a Saving Gateway Bill and a Welfare Reform Bill.

Re-reading the document yesterday, my mind drifted to the circumlocution office of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit, another costume drama but one that almost single-handedly justifies the TV licence fee.

But I digress. The draft legislative programme is dreary fare. Much of what the government proposes to add to the statute books is of the paper-shuffling, edge-tinkering variety. The meat comes each year in the form of the Finance Bill (which enacts the proposals contained within the Budget) or from rushed-through measures designed to address the media campaign of the day.

Little of this stuff is going to set tempers ablaze down the Old Dog and Duck, though James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, won't be too popular with people whose toughest task of the day is searching for the TV remote while waiting for their next benefit cheque.

For a start, around half the bills have already seen the light of day, such is the length of time it takes to get things moving down the circumlocution office (sorry, Palace of Westminster).

Hence the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, some five years in the making, will help transfer control of Scotland's coastal seas to the Scottish Government. Ditto the Immigration Bill, which, as we already know, will introduce an "Australian-style" points system to the UK for would-be immigrants. Or, indeed, Mr Purnell's wake-up call to withhold benefits from Britain's work-shy.

His latest wheeze, unveiled yesterday as an appetiser to the main event, involves using voice-activated lie detectors to check whether scoundrels are telling porkies to continue to claim their state-funded bounty. Aye, that's you I'm talking to, Jimmy.

But Mr Purnell risks offending sensibilities if he comes over too heavily on single mums by withdrawing their right to income support. From 2010, as the Queen will announce in a more polite way, mothers able to work must try to do so – with jobseekers' allowance available if they can't find employment.

When Mr Brown set out the draft programme six months ago, he made a nervy statement to the House of Commons then hot-footed it, for the benefit of the rolling TV stations, to a community centre in south London to repeat his message in slightly clearer language.

He recalled – not for the first time – his old school motto: "I will try my utmost." The school nearby had the motto "Reach for the light", he added.

"Today I aspire for everyone to reach for the light – their ambition. Very simply, I aspire to create an opportunity-rich country where everyone can get on and get up in the lives we live. Never to level down, always to lift up." Yes, he actually said all that.

At the time, it seemed laughable. He had been Prime Minister for less than a year, but his leadership had been plunged into darkness, most recently by the 10p income tax fiasco. Soaring food, household energy and oil prices were also pressing upon him heavily then.

As such, the draft programme was not the work of a man full of confidence, but of one punch-drunk and trying desperately to avoid the knock-out blow.

How things have changed. A poll yesterday put Mr Brown within one point of David Cameron's Conservatives. The great clunking fist has returned to make his weekly duel with Mr Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions an even match.

But, more importantly, he has reasserted his status in the chamber. Only a foolish Tory backbencher now dares to challenge his intellectual might when it comes to the global economy.

What does this mean for the Queen's Speech? What may be more crucial today is what is left unsaid. Namely, how many of the bills that seemed a reasonable idea six months ago find themselves left gathering dust on a shelf, as Mr Brown replaces them with draft legislation with a greater sense of purpose. That will show us how prepared a visibly reinvigorated Mr Brown is for the future.

Today's speech will be delivered in the Queen's English. But its tone and accent must be that of the man even his rivals have dubbed the king of Fife. And that was before victory in Glenrothes. To borrow from perhaps Dickens' greatest hero, David Copperfield, now is the time for Mr Brown to prove he can be the hero of his own life.