It's Pantomime Season...............

..................or, more correctly, the State Opening of Parliament. I'll pass over making any comments about what I think of the pomp and pageantry and just make a few observations about what the Queen (gawd bless her!) had written into her speech. It strikes me that there is no over-arching theme to what is being considered and, as a consequence, no evidence of any strategic thinking, beyond "making difficult decisions etc etc". No surprises there really

On some of the specific proposals:
1.  House of Lords Reform - we've heard it all before and I'm certainly not going to get my hopes up that something radical will emerge. Given that the majority of voters in the UK seem to be disengaged from politics, what's required urgently is a revision of our entire political infrastructure to make it more accessible.  Anything other than a fully elected second chamber isn't going far enough; reducing the number of MPs in the Commons is a mistake as this puts more distance between the voter and their elected representatives. Similarly the fashion for larger Unitary Authorities achieves the same end.
2. Draft Communications Bill - which appears to make it easier for police and intelligence agencies to access, store and share data on private phone calls and email communications - regardless of a crime being committed or even suspected.

No doubt I'll be coming back to these, and other, topics as the next session of Parliament progresses. For a political nerd like me it promises to be interesting: for others probably completely boring!