#prime minister

The Queen’s Speech has been delayed.

Hold up, isn’t the Queen’s Speech just a Christmas thing?

This has been a common question today, so if you’ve been wondering the same thing, you weren’t alone! The Queen gives her Christmas speech every year (makes sense, right?) but to get full value for money on the royal family, she’s also brought out after each general election.

Makes sense. So what does she actually talk about?

The post-election Queen’s Speech is a quick summary of all the major policies the party-in-power hope to implement over their term. Not everything will make it in: the past two Tory manifestos pledged to repeal the ban on fox hunting, but the policy never featured in the speech.

When was it meant to happen?

The speech was originally scheduled for June 19th (next Monday). No date has been set yet for when we’ll end up hearing it.

Okay, but why has this one been delayed then?

Right, so this is where it gets a bit more complicated, mostly because at this point we move into the realm of speculation. Never a good thing for an article on politics, y’know? 

Theresa May ran on a promise of strength and stability. She was hoping to get a huge majority for the Tories to (a) put Britain in a better negotiating position with the EU and (b) bolster her self-esteem. This didn’t go to plan: we now have a ‘hung parliament’.

All those policies the Tories could have put in the Queen’s Speech suddenly look doubtful to pass a vote in the House of Commons. Right now, senior Tories are going over and over their manifesto looking for the bits and pieces that stand a chance and coming to terms with the policies they’ll have to lose. This is one of the reason’s it’s going to take longer than usual to prepare the speech.

Didn’t the Tories make that deal with the DUP to avoid this sort of thing though?

The DUP agreement is a Confidence and Support deal rather than a full on coalition. What this means is that the 10 DUP MPs in the Commons keep their right to vote against Tory policies if they don’t agree with them.

A good example is triple-lock pensions. This is a promise by the government to increase state pensions each year in line with inflation or wage growth, or by 2.5% (whichever of the three is highest). The Tory manifesto pledged to do away with this, whereas the DUP strongly support keeping the protection. In a Commons vote, the Tories will face a real struggle to secure the majority vote needed to scrap the scheme.

It’s also likely that the delay is partly because of this deal: the DUP will be making some demands of the Tories in exchange for their support that the Tories just won’t be that willing to accept. 

So what does this mean for the government then?

As of right now, Theresa May’s Tory party still hold the power. The delaying of the Queen’s Speech has made them look weaker to the public and has potentially put a dent in the timetable for Brexit negotiations (will we even have an official Prime Minister when they’re due to start in 9 days?). 

There’s rumour that Corbyn is poised to take full advantage of this perceived instability. Labour are supposedly planning to try and block each and every policy the Tories try to include in their Queen’s Speech. If a speech cannot be agreed upon, then there’s a series of steps that could be followed to give Corbyn a chance to form his own minority government.

That’s only a very remote possibility though!

tl;dr The Conservative Party have delayed the Queen’s Speech as they struggle to edit their manifesto to a more centrist position.

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Long-awaited (and for once not all that long-winded) the Queen’s Speech was finally revealed at 11:30am today. So just what did it contain?

Brexit

8 out of the 24 bills in the speech related to plans for UK policy after leaving the EU. We’ve broken down the main aspects of each bill below:

1. Repeal Bill – turns EU law into UK law so UK Parliament can make changes
2. Customs Bill – UK takes control of import and exports
3. Trade Bill – lets the UK make trade deals with other countries
4. Immigration Bill – allows UK government to end free movement of EU nationals into UK
5. Fisheries Bill – gives UK control of its waters and fishing quotas
6. Agriculture Bill – a system will be put in place to protect UK famers
7. Nuclear Safeguards Bill – creates a UK nuclear safeguards regime to replace the EU one
8. International Sanctions Bill – gives government final say on imposing non-UN sanctions to the UK and ensures sanctions can still be challenged
   

Economy

This was a stripped back speech, with very little change in economic policy. Only 5 bills related to the economy:

1. Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill – service stations will, at some point, need to install charge points for electric vehicles
   
2. Space Industry Bill – new commercial spaceflight to be licensed, including rockets
   
3. HS2 Phase 2A Bill – the high speed railway will extend to Crewe sooner than planned
   
4. Smart Meter Bill – every household will be offered smart meters by 2020
   
5. National Insurance Contributions Bill – allows for the changes announced in 2016 budget

Other

There were 11 miscellaneous policies. More notable bills include the Courts Bill, which will remove the right of partners accused of domestic violence to cross-examine their alleged victim in court. 

On a similar vein, the Draft Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill will introduce new measures to protect victims of domestic violence. 

For younger voters, the Data Protection Bill is very interesting - it will require social media accounts to delete information held about you at the age of 18.

What does this all mean?

Legally, not very much. Not until next week anyway, when the MPs in the House of Commons will have the chance to vote for or against each bill individually. With a majority not yet secured, there’s a chance not all of these proposed bills will pass. Even then, these are just a snapshot of proposed government policy over the next 2 years.

What the Queen’s Speech does tell us is that the Tories are not having a very happy time at the moment. A large chunk of their manifesto has gone missing:

• New grammar schools
  
• The ‘dementia tax’
  
• Scrapping triple lock pensions
  
• Replacing free school lunches with free breakfasts
  
• Energy price caps
  
• Voting to remove ban on fox hunting
  
• Means testing winter fuel payments
  

The suggestion is that the Tories did not think they would be able to pass these policies through the Commons - the more liberal parties were all very vocal in their opposition to these proposals during election campaigning, and even the DUP do not agree with scrapping triple lock pensions.

Through the Queen’s Speech, we’ve been given a little glimpse of the state of the Conservative Party: a monstrous papier-mâché parody of an unpopular manifesto.

If you’re not the spouse of a world leader and don’t say “the government fucks me every day”, do you even deserve to be married to a head of state?

2020 is proven to be a weird year for me, although during January I said to myself to embrace this year as it is an even year – twenty twenty, my preference on odd year is low. I celebrated my brother’s birthday too at Angke after I got back from visiting physical inventory observations in one of the hospitals in Cikarang.  

In February, I still managed to celebrate my mom’s birthday and had a lunch at Plaza Indonesia and order her the money bouquet. Haha, you know how our parents always told us that bought a fresh flowers is a waste of money. So I bough her few roses with money in it and made it as bouquet. 

Soon after that, March comes up. Still busy with peak seasons (Remember my careers – as auditors) – I still visit some of my clients and then I had a strangest feeling as I want to have lunch with Ci Mel and ignore my lunchbox on that Friday in mid March and soon after that there is an email to have mandatory work from home to minimize impact of Coronavirus spread in Jakarta.  

Usually, I find solace or comfort by going somewhere far away in order to get away from the people I see all the time. It gives me a lift up, shifting my mind in the hope to get my mind refresh. My destination if there is no COVID-19 would be Japan as it is just in time for Tokyo Olympics 2020. That, sadly, did not occur this year. Turns out - 2020 filled with despair, sadness, unfulfilled long waited vacations. But, unexpectedly, I feel like this is the first year I am embracing my self, yeah my self –  I can write another post about that. 

“We, who grow up by escaping to the comfort of our television programs and movies, consider the performer we watched and the character they played as member of our extended families.”

Other than my families, my two favorite cousins, I feel like I am closer to some of my favorite character from my favorite movies. I know them better than  some of my colleague at work.

In January 2020, I read news about the helicopter crash resulted the death of Kobe Bryant and his daughters. It’s a sad start and up to August, according to US Magazine, there were 151 celebrities who died in 2020. Among them were my ‘extended families’– Naya Rivera and Ian Holm. Recently passed away, Chadwick Boseman made the list longer. Other than that, when I open IMDB or scroll my Instagram feeds from VarietyorThe Academy when the screen black or suddenly posting past photos, I had a bad feeling prior to reading the captions for the passing of Ennio Morricone, Irrfan Khan, Jerry Stiller, Haruma Miura, Kelly Preston. 

The resignation of Japan’s Prime Minister last Friday also another shock yet sad news. I often see Abe-sama and Akie-sama – during his visit to Indonesia, G20 Summit in Osaka and the enthronement of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako. Resignation – this words become a trend in my kaisha.It started in early March my core team members resigned, continue with the other two  team members. Hard blow is – my only friends since I entered my kaisha also resign along with another one. I feel sad, lonely - I know she’s still there when I contact her, but it feels different and something feel out of pictures. 

People come and go – according to the time set by the universe. This post is an expression of longing of human connections and interactions. I hope for better conditions …. soon.

Alexander Boris Johnson is a British politician, author, and former journalist, who has served as the prime-minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the Conservative Party since July 2019, and a politician since 2001. He also served as mayor of London from 2008 to 2016 and foreign secretary from 2016 to 2018.

He was educated at Eton College and at Oxford University, where he was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1986. He began his career in journalism at The Times. He was an assistant editor of The Daily Telegraph from 1994 to 1999. He largely adhered to the Conservatives party line but adopted a socially liberal stance on issues such as LGBT rights in parliamentary votes. During his mayoralty, he banned alcohol drinking on much of London’s public transport, an oversaw the 2012 Summer Olympics, a new bus range and cycle hire scheme.

He identifies as a liberal-conservative. Supporters have praised him as an entertaining, humorous, and popular figure, with an appeal stretching beyond traditional Conservative voters. In a snap general election in December 2019, he led the Conservative Party to their biggest victory since 1987, and the biggest percentage vote share of any party since 1979.