Down on the green benches, everything’s changed. Up on the red ones, everything stays the same. Seismic electoral events don’t so much as rattle the windows of the upper chamber. Governments and centuries come and go. Landslides rise again with the geological tides. No big deal. Carry on regardless.
Life in the House of Lords is moving at breakneck pace at the minute. This was the second state opening of parliament in nine months. The various heralds and pursuivants who smooth the passage of the King to the throne are usually safe to risk leaving their golden tabards at the dry cleaners for several years, but not this time.
For various reasons that may not be worth the keystrokes to explain, the people in the fancy dress on these occasions get paid an annual salary of either £17.80 or £13.95. More than doubling the workload on the same terms is a little bit of a liberty.
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The noble lords and ladies were gathered in their scarlet robes and white fur capes from early morning, bagging the best spots. The late Viscount Stansgate, better known as Tony Benn, famously relinquished his peerage to pursue the cause of socialism in the House of Commons. The current Viscount Stansgate, his son, and Hilary Benn’s brother (and lookalike), Stephen, quietly asked for it back a few years ago.
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The viscount was sitting on the end of a row, over by the bishops and the ambassadors. His face remained admirably expressionless a few moments later when the King strolled in, sat on his throne, picked up his roll of vellum and breezily announced the abolition of hereditary peerages. Oh well. Fun while it lasted.
Any spark of youth is blinding in there. Carmen Smith, 28, also known as Plaid Cymru’s Baroness Smith, was impossible to miss on the back row, offsetting her ceremonial clobber with her dyed pink hair. She looked like some sort of prodigal science whizz who’d been forced into dining at high table while still an undergraduate.
In the row in front of her, the worryingly young-looking Baron Markham, aged a mere 56, whiled away the waiting time by whipping out his extremely large iPad and keyboard and watching what looked to be some sort of period drama. Eventually we worked out the period drama in question was the one he was currently starring in — the state opening of parliament live on the BBC News Channel.
Had the camera cut to him at an inopportune moment, he’d have suddenly been watching himself watching himself watching himself — the entire occasion sucked down the infinite black hole of his iPad screen, just like when you stick your head between two hotel wardrobe mirrors.
It’s a shame he wasn’t shown as he made for compulsive viewing. When the King himself finally turned up, his noble lordship spent several minutes glancing up at His Majesty and then back down at his iPad, as if trying to work out which was further ahead, the actual observable universe around him or the livestream on BBC iPlayer. Trying to take in two almost identical things at once is the sort of thing that might drive a normal person mad. Luckily the Baron Markham of East Horsley, in the county of Surrey, spent much of the Truss and Sunak administrations combining his role co-owning a large private sector Covid-19 testing firm with a second, slightly similar job at the Department of Health, so he was very well prepared for this kind of challenge.
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Baroness Mone of Mayfair, usually a regular on these occasions, was sadly absent for the second time in a row. Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton also sadly hadn’t made it.
As the first flash of the ceremonial crown appeared in the arched doorway behind the throne, news broke of the arrest of various anti-monarchy protesters. It seems a shame. There have been noticeable changes of personnel at both ends of the British state recently. Campaigners for an elected head of state could simply sing God Save Our Gracious Keir instead and we could all live in quite literal perfect harmony.
If Her Majesty the Queen felt like there were more exciting ways to spend her 77th birthday then she didn’t show it. The only moment of discernible human emotion came when the King’s twelve foot long robes briefly got caught on the corner of his throne and he yanked at them with a momentary flash of anger, but who of us can say we haven’t done the same?
Aside from the bit about hereditary peers, the only moment of note in the speech came near the start, with some legislation about the liberalisation of rules around what you can and can’t do with pension funds. There are, it’s fair to say, safer rooms than this in which to try out a bit of material about taking risks with pensions.
Down in the doorway, we scribblers can only really peer over from the press gallery — no pun intended — and gaze upon the tops of the heads of the prime minister, the chancellor, and their opposite numbers.
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Cranial semaphore is not the easiest language to master, but there appeared to be considerable bonhomie between them. People have already interpreted this as the return of civilised, grown-up politics.
It looked to me more like the sort of emotional overcompensation that can be expected after six long weeks of vicious campaigning. Small children are always at their most affectionate right after the resolution of a row. It most definitely doesn’t mean there won’t be another one, quite possibly within a matter of minutes.
