Confessing Evangelical

An entertaining parliamentary sketch from Simon Hoggart, who reports on the prorogation of parliament yesterday - that is, the end of the parliamentary year, before the next session commences with the state opening next week.

Hoggart has fun with some of the more Ruritanian aspects of the occasion, such as the reason given by the lord chancellor - this year as every year - to explain the queen's non-appearance:

"It not being convenient for Her Majesty to be here today."

As Hoggart points out, that makes it sound like a diary mix-up rather than a parliamentary custom whose origins are, one assumes, lost in the usual mists of time.

Then there is the procession of various parliamentary eminences, "magnificent in full robes of scarlet and ermine, and hats, superb comedy pointed hats", including:

...on the end Tom Strathclyde, the Tory leader, whose name was read out in full: "Thomas Galloway Dunlop Roy du Blicquy Galbraith Strathclyde", which isn't so much a name as a platform announcement for the stopping train.

But even amongst all the pomp and "flummery" of the occasion, some serious constitutional business was done: the formal passing into law of the various acts from this session, by the royal assent:

[O]ne of two clerks read out all the acts that had been passed. They had dull workmanlike, New Labour titles: the Violent Crime Reduction Act, the Education and Inspections Act, the Safeguarding Of Vulnerable Groups Act, and so forth. After each title was read out, another clerk spun round, a little like Carol Vorderman picking out a letter, and announced to the MPs, who had assembled at the bar of the house to join in the fun, "La Reine le veult", or "the Queen wishes it".

Now, to some, the implication that parliament's actions require the Queen's permission in this way may appear to be a throwback to medieval times, a denial of democracy. But Simon Hoggart draws a different conclusion:

At this point it struck me that, while it might be the silliest flummery and pantomime nonsense, the ritual was moving, evocative and even resonant. For that one phrase, a piece of Norman French from nearly a thousand years ago, pronounced in the traditional fashion - "la wren le vurlt" - carried with it the unspoken addition, "whether she likes it or not", and so encompassed the history of our ancient freedoms, wrenched from the monarch by our ancestors over the centuries.

(That last bit's why you get the picture of Cromwell, in case you were wondering.)