Most people don’t think of her annual pilgrimage to open parliament for a truly British ceremony. It starts with the Yeoman searching the basement to make sure Guy Fawkes isn’t there, guards stand round with shiny swords and the Queen holds someone hostage at her palace. You couldn’t make it up.
It’s a brilliantly British scene of first class pomp and ceremony. I recognise that maybe it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth paying attention to. In this year’s speech were a couple of potential nuggets that had Bono and Bob Geldoff swooning.
Those particular nuggets were on aid and climate change. The government has introduced draft legislation to make it legally binding that the UK reaches its commitment to give 0.7% of Gross Domestic Product (what we make) in international aid.
Fantastic - well nearly… Draft legislation means that it is very unlikely to become law before the next election. This makes it very different from announcing a new full bill. We hope that all parties will commit to making it a law and we want them to do so before an election. Forgive us if we don’t start celebrating just yet! However, Oxfam campaigners efforts are making in roads and this does give us something to build upon.
There was also a couple of lines in there about climate change “My government will seek effective global and European collaboration through the G20 and the European Union to sustain economic recovery and to combat climate change, including at the Copenhagen summit next month.”
We are hopeful for a positive result at Copenhagen, but we will wait and see before the praise begins.
After all, not all that glitters is gold.
Tags: bob Geldof, Bono, climate change, international development aid, Queen's speech
