King Charles came to the state opening of Parliament because he had to, and he did exactly what the moment demanded. He told peers, “My lords. Pray be seated,” before beginning to read out the king’s speech.
The scene had the stiffness of ritual and the unease of a government that may not be around to carry out what it was announcing. It was odds-on Starmer would be out of Downing Street by the end of the summer and all this would be a total waste of time.
Keir Starmer walked to the Lords for the ceremony, and Kemi Badenoch tried to draw him into conversation on the short walk. “We had some sensational results in the local elections,” she said, a line that cut through the pageantry as neatly as anything in the speech itself.
That exchange mattered because the state opening is meant to project continuity, yet the day was shadowed by the possibility that the policy programme being read out could belong to a very short-lived government. Charles was there under obligation, not choice, and the formality only sharpened the sense that the political ground underneath it was moving.
The walk back told its own story. James Cleverly spoke with Wes Streeting, while Nigel Farage fell into conversation with Andrew Mitchell as MPs made their way back to the Commons. Mitchell had already been referred to the parliamentary commissioner on standards over a failure to declare a £5m gift from a Thai crypto billionaire, a detail that hung over the exchange even if it was not part of the ceremony itself.
What made the day more than theatre was the mismatch between the choreography and the mood. Charles began with “My government will …” as tradition required, but the line landed in a parliament where loyalties, alliances and expectations looked far less settled than the gold and velvet around him suggested. If Starmer survives, the speech becomes a programme; if he does not, it becomes a historical footnote almost as soon as it is delivered.
