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The Queen's speech today is accompanied by all the usual pomp and circumstance (excepting the Speaker's decision to dress down) but it has, nonetheless, an air of unreality.
This is not so much a government setting out its legislative programme for the next parliament as a political party putting out its stand for the election. Parliament will have 70 sitting days before the likely date of that election.
And to make the whole exercise seem even more academic, the Tories in the Lords are threatening to block major parts of the programme.
But given that the speech is more or less a party political manifesto, it is, as such, worth serious consideration.
The most attractive element is the commitment to providing free care at home to the neediest elderly regardless of their income. The necessity for such a measure is undoubted.
It is remarkable that this should be getting political priority only now, when it would have been more affordable during the Government's fat years of prosperity, which seem unlikely to return any time soon. Even so, it puts down a marker that the Tories cannot ignore.
But the bizarre element of the programme is its reliance on laws to make the Government fulfil its obligations.
There will be a law to oblige it to halve the £174 billion deficit in four years and to balance the books by 2018.
Further, the Government will enshrine in law various aspects of a child's entitlement to a good education. This is a curious way of establishing the Prime Minister's credibility.
The Government should be trying to reduce the deficit and to provide good schools. If it is not doing so, legislation is not going to be the answer. Who pays the penalty if it fails?
Then there is the element of sheer populism in the proposed bill to give the financial regulators powers to curb irresponsible bankers' contracts.
As this paper has already pointed out, this kind of state interference in contracts cannot be carried out in Britain in isolation; it could encourage a flight of financial talent from the City.
But that is a characteristic of the speech; it is less about serious bills than a statement of direction.
It gives a sense of the struggle to come; voters will treat it accordingly.
Let battle commence
The debate for the presidency of the European Union — and its foreign minister — may or may not be concluded at a Brussels summit tomorrow but already the contest has produced the kind of horsetrading that characterises the EU at its worst.
The interests of small countries are pitched against those of large ones; federalists against sceptics; socialists against conservatives.
Britain has a dog in this fight: Tony Blair, but he hardly has the nation's unequivocal backing.
The Tories have been lobbying against him; opponents of the war in Iraq dislike him. But this is nothing to Eurosceptics' indignation at the prospect of the federalist Belgian Prime Minister, Herman Van Rompuy, taking the job.
The only woman in the contest, the Latvian president Vaira Vike-Frelberga, is, by contrast, a candidate who combines considerable personal appeal with the advantage of belonging to a small nation relatively new to the EU.
The successful candidate will, as always in Europe, be the least worst candidate with the fewest enemies. It's hardly the way to make us feel warmly about the EU, is it?
By any other name
Traditionalists can breathe again: the Lord's cricket ground is not going to sell its name for cash, at least not in the lifetime of the secretary of the MCC, Keith Bradshaw.
It's quite something nowadays to achieve a £400 million makeover without selling name and soul. Fair play to him.
