- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
- Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
- McIlroy eyes Wentworth glory after Irish Open collapse
- Italy seen overtaking France as world's largest wine producer
- Hezbollah vows vengeance on Israel for pager blasts
- Brook expects unified England after McCullum's white-ball takeover
- Kamindu Mendis century rescues Sri Lanka against New Zealand
- Two dead in botched armed raid on Russian retailer's office
- UK train drivers back govt pay deal to end strikes
- Man who copied French rapist says he deserves to punished
- Eriksen will wait to settle Man Utd future
- Former England striker Carroll signs for fourth-tier Bordeaux
- Van Dijk hails Liverpool's 'calm' response in win over AC Milan
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ |
King Charles III to set out UK govt to-do list
King Charles III will read out Labour's first programme for government in a decade and half on Wednesday when the UK parliament formally reopens following the July 4 election.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer will put turbocharging economic growth at the heart of his legislative plans as Labour runs the UK for the first time in 14 years.
"The legislation set out at the King's Speech will build on the momentum of our first days in office and make a difference to the lives of working people," said Starmer, who led his party to landslide win over the Conservatives.
Despite its name, the address is not written by the monarch but by the government, which uses it to detail the laws it proposes to make over the next 12 months.
Wearing the diamond-studded Imperial State Crown and a long crimson robe, King Charles will deliver the proposals from a golden throne in the House of Lords upper chamber during a lavish ceremony.
The speech is expected to include more than 35 bills, including measures to enforce public spending rules and others to prevent a repeat of the utility bill price hikes that triggered the UK's recent cost-of-living crisis.
The legislation will also flesh out announcements already made, such as the launching of a fund to draw investment into the UK and of a publicly owned body tasked with boosting clean power by 2030.
Labour is also likely to announce the restoration of mandatory housebuilding targets, plans to renationalise Britain's much-maligned rail services, as well as the opening of recruitment for a new border security command.
A bill to boost workers' rights, including a ban on zero-hour contracts, and strengthened protections for renters are also expected to be included in what will be centre-left Labour's first such speech since it was ousted from power in 2010.
"This is a hungry party," former Labour minister Tony McNulty told AFP.
"They are chomping at the bit to show that they can get back to being what they see as the natural party of government."
- Ceremonial 'hostage' -
The day's proceedings will start at 9:30 am (0830 GMT) when royal bodyguards ritually search the basement of the Palace of Westminster for explosives -- a legacy of the failed attempt by Catholics to blow up parliament in 1605.
The sovereign will then travel to the Houses of Parliament by carriage from Buckingham Palace, escorted by mounted cavalry.
Tradition dictates that an MP is ceremonially held "hostage" in the palace to ensure the king's safe return.
A parliamentary official known as Black Rod will have the door of the lower chamber House of Commons slammed in their face, a tradition that symbolises parliament's independence from the monarchy.
MPs will follow Black Rod to the upper chamber, where King Charles, as head of state, will give the speech to assembled lords and ladies in red and ermine robes, plus invited members of the elected Commons shortly after 11:30 am.
In keeping with the convention that monarch is above politics, keen environmentalist King Charles remained expressionless during the last address in November when then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government announced new oil and gas licences.
"There's probably much in this King's Speech that he will favour rather than the other one he had to read out," said McNulty, a British politics lecturer at Queen Mary University of London.
"But he'll play it with a straight face. That's the job."
G.M.Castelo--PC