Tomorrow’s ceremony of Opening of Parliament is not just a chance to don ermine robes and pipe up the pomp and circumstance.

Tomorrow the Queen will open Parliament for what could be its last session before a General Election. The opening ceremony will be a mixture of pageantry and serious political business. Once the Queen has taken her seat on the throne in the House of Lords she will read a speech outlining the new laws the Government is planning to make in the forthcoming parliamentary year.

But the title “Queen’s Speech” is misleading. It is not really the Queen’s Speech at all, but the Government’s. It is not an expression of the Queen’s own views.

This year Queen’s Speech is unlikely to contain as many bills as in previous years. This is because the Government may want to cut short the parliamentary year and call a General Election. The main issues are likely to be a criminal justice bill to change the criminal law, and a “green” bill to clean up the environment.

Other measures expected to be in the Queen’s Speech are new laws to bring privately financed tollroads and new rules to ease traffic congestion in London.

The Queen’s Speech always takes place on Wednesday in November, in the house of Lords at 11 a.m. It is the centerpiece of the State Opening of Parliament. This is the event where the Queen puts on her glittering ceremonial dress and crown and speaks from a throne, watched by her husband, other members of her family and assembled Lords and MPs. The ceremony begins with a procession of carriages from Buckingham Palace, bearing the Queen and her family. On arrival at the House of Lords, she makes her way to the chamber, where the throne is situated, to make her speech. This has been the practice since 1536. She is greeted in the Lords by the peers and peeresses in ermine robes. In the Commons, MPs are waiting to be summoned , dressed slightly less glamorously.

It is a long-standing tradition that the Monarch never enters the House of Commons. Instead he or she uses a messenger, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, usually known as Black Rod, to summon MPs to the Lords.

As Black Rod approaches the Commons chamber across the Central Lobby of the House of Parliament, the door of the Commons is traditionally slammed in his face, a custom which dates from the time Charles I tried to arrest five MPs in 1642.

Black Rod then raps three times on the door with his ebony stick and the door is opened. He proceeds, bowing all the time to the table in front of the Speaker, who maintains order in the debates in the Commons, to summon MPs to the Lords. The Speaker is elected by the House of Commons from among its members. Speakers are MPs, but once elected, they must resign from their party. The current Speaker is Betty Boothroyd. The Speaker, followed by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, then make their way into the Lords, followed by MPs walking two by two, to hear the speech.

b) Answer the questions:

1. Who reads the speech?

2. Who writes the speech? Whose views does the speech represent?

3. On what date is the speech made?

4. Since what time has this ceremony been the practice?

5. Where exactly is the speech made?

6. Who is present while the speech is made?

7. Why does the sovereign send a messenger to the House of Commons?

8. Which paragraphs of the text are concerned with pageantry and which are concerned with serious political business?

9. Which of these words do you think describe this ceremony best? (beautiful, traditional, historic, silly, pompous). Why do you think so?

10. Why do you think this text has such headline? What’s the idea of this article?