Funnily enough, Liberal Democrats aren’t that impressed with the Queen’s Speech. There certainly is a lot to worry people of a liberal disposition. Three immediately come to mind:

The Queen might as well have said: “My Government will indulge all its prejudices regardless of the evidence.” For “upholding the sovereignty of Parliament and the primacy of the House of Commons” read “My Government will do all it can to avoid being held to account despite only having the support of a third of the electorate.”

The counter-extremism stuff is pretty sinister, as Alistair Carmichael said the other day:

Rumours about what the upcoming extremism bill will include paint a dark picture. The government seems to think that the answer to every problem is to ban it. The last thing we should be doing is driving extremists into the shadows and underground.

The government is not only threatening our safety with this bill but the very fabric of our multicultural society by alienating certain communities.

I’m slightly worried about the adoption measures. If the state is going to remove children and allow them to be adopted by other people, there does need to be proper safeguards. That could and should take time before permanent ties are broken, especially if the parents do not have the support in place to help them overcome their problems.

If you were thinking that you might have heard some of the measures before, you’re right. Tim Farron said:

Only one year in and this Conservative majority is running out of steam.

30 announcements, but 28 have been made before. Weekend prisoners, announced by a weakened Government.

The Queen’s Speech is a stop-gap to give the warring factions of the Tory party a couple of days’ respite from the referendum. It does nothing to address the key issues at stake.

This country’s challenges on education, housing, investment, skills, and the environment are either ignored, or offered nothing more than empty rhetoric.

The Conservatives are continuing their dogmatic assault on civil liberties with the ongoing threat of the snoopers’ charter and an obsession to tear up the Human Rights Act. We will fight them every step of the way.

There are enough re-runs on BBC without having to get the Queen to do her own.

There’s a familiar phrase creeping into our pronouncements. Alistair Carmichael said it on the BBC just after the speech.

.@acarmichaelmp says Tories have taken their eye off the ball as they manage their on internal strife over EU #queensspeech

— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) May 18, 2016

Tom Brake tweeted it:

1st time since 2010 there was no mention of the deficit. Without @LibDems the @conservatives are taking their eye off the ball #QueensSpeech

— Tom Brake MP (@thomasbrake) May 18, 2016

It’s a phrase Scottish Liberal Democrats used a lot during the Scottish Independence Referendum. Given the decline in our health services, schools, police service and the like, it’s certainly true. The SNP did distract us with a 3.5 year referendum campaign and forgot about what they were there to do. The only problem is that those who wanted the referendum didn’t quite see it like that and it wasn’t saying anything new to people who didn’t want the referendum. It was kind of stating the obvious. It might work better in a UK context, especially if Remain manages to build a big enough lead. We shall see.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social