Why not let the Queen write her own speech?

THE FRIDAY THING: THE Queen’s Speech is supposed to point us forward to the coming year in the soap opera that is politics UK.

It is supposed to set down a timetable for all the goodies that await us in the Government’s big sweetie bag.

But what we found in the sweetie bag, meant to sugar us all up ahead of the General Election in two years, was not sweeties but sweepies, as expected legislation was swept under the Number 10 carpet.

There is no new commitment to an EU referendum by 2017, leaving those many Euro sceptic Tories leaning ever closer to UKIP.

There was no new law on plain packaging for cigarettes; no new law to give the security service and the police access to on-line communications to look for evidence of terrorist activity and other organised crime activities. And, despite all the hints, there was no mention either of a new law on alcohol pricing nor same-sex marriages, which the Prime Minister seemed wildly enthusiastic about until he realised the overwhelming majority opposed it.

I have no doubt the Queen could have written a better speech (better for Britain and its people, that is) because unlike the Tories, she wouldn’t have been writing it with one hand tied behind her back and wearing blinkers so as not to upset Nick Clegg and his self-serving wet brigade.

Does the paucity of items in the Queen’s Speech show us the Tories are stuck for ideas, or just stuck for ideas that might appeal to the voters?

Or are they waiting for 2015, when they can finally cut themselves free from the Lib-Dems and produce a string of vote-winning goodies?




Road tax for cyclists?



NOW here’s an idea that might have gone down well with the majority of the public (especially motorists) and at least made the Queen’s Speech a genuine talking point: road taxes for cyclists.



No one would expect the bike riders to pay anything like the ludicrous road taxes that motorists have to pay, but shouldn’t cyclists have to make a contribution for using the roads?

The number of cyclists on the roads these days is huge. Already it seems cyclists have their own highway code, which simply says “do what you want, when you want”.

I do not expect the idea to go down well in the cycling community, but paying getting on for £300 car tax every year doesn’t thrill motorists either.