Charles III in Westminster for his first King's Speech, the king's speech to the assembled Houses which marks the inauguration of a new year of work in the British Parliament. The sovereign arrived in a carriage with Queen Camilla, accompanied with great pomp by the royal insignia and the traditional procession with the Royal Guard's horse escort.

For Charles - who will turn 75 in just over a week - it was another debut as a sovereign. It was actually he himself who read Elizabeth II's last Queen's Speech as Prince of Wales last year, on behalf of his already 96-year-old mother, a few months before succeeding her on the throne on 8 September 2022 upon her death.

Then he was sitting next to an empty throne, but this time the royal seat - placed according to custom in the House of Lords, since British constitutional monarchs cannot symbolically enter the elective seat of the Commons - fell to him and him alone. With Camilla at his side, and both with crowns on their heads.

The sovereign wore the high uniform of a grand admiral of the Royal Navy on the occasion, while the queen consort wore one of the crowns already worn by the late Elizabeth II in the past.

The speech - after 70 years of Elizabethan reign and Queen's Speeches - is read again as King's Speech for the first time since George VI's farewell speech, dated 1951. It is the reading of a summary list of the government program in office "of His Majesty" for the following 12 months and is written entirely by the executive . Today it bears the unpublished signature of Rishi Sunak, the first occupant of Downing Street born to Indian immigrants , who succeeded Boris Johnson a year ago and then Liz Truss as the third leader of the Tory majority of this legislature; and which could be the last before the next elections, scheduled for the end of 2024.

Charles III introduced his first King's Speech with a tribute to his late mother, underlining at the beginning that it is the "first King's Speech in 70 years", then explained that he wanted to read it in memory of the "spirit of service" towards the country exercised unsparingly "by my beloved mother" from 1952 to her death. Then he went on to list the 21 bills and initiatives planned for next year by "my government".

In a context that Rishi Sunak's Tory cabinet underlines is characterized for the United Kingdom by the heavy challenges left as a legacy primarily "by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine" triggered by the invasion of Russia, among the various measures there are on law and order, promises to relaunch the economy, commitments to fight anti-Semitism but also the programmatic intention to continue on the path of transition towards zero emissions. And to multiply "licences" for the resumption of gas and oil extraction in the Kingdom: a measure far from the environmentalist battles carried out by Charles for decades, ever since he was heir to the throne.

The constitutional monarch closed with the usual invocation of the "blessing of Almighty God" on the heads of those who politically lead the nation. Finally he returned to Buckingham Palace - from where he had arrived to the sound of the national anthem God Save the King and welcomed by cannon volleys traditionally fired from Green Park - in a carriage procession, always alongside Queen Camilla.

(Unioneonline/D)

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