The glaring gap in the Queen's speech proposals is of course Lords reform.
It would be great if a commitment to gold-standard permanence for all children in care or on the edge of care was the outcome of the debate on the Queen's speech proposals.
But Lord Ashcroft warned that many of the Alternative Queen's Speech proposals suffered from what he called a "meh factor", with as many as 48 per cent of those questioned saying they had no opinion one way or the other on issues which their backers insisted would galvanise popular support.
But Ashcroft warned that many of the alternative Queen's speech proposals suffered from what he called a "meh factor", with as many as 48% of those questioned saying they had no opinion one way or the other on issues that their backers insisted would galvanise popular support.
The Phoenix speech proposal was "very difficult for me, somebody who works with the Latino community, to defend," said Alfonso Aguilar, president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.
I know, he still speaks and acts cautiously about some things, but if you look at his actual speeches, proposals, and budget numbers, this is not a man who is just a pragmatic guy who doesn't want to really change anything big, as Brooks' sources were telling him.
Mindful as he and his coalition are of being compared to Mrs. Thatcher, who is still a divisive figure, Mr. Osborne chose to end his hourlong speech with proposals aimed at helping the country's poorest, like an increase in the personal income tax allowance that would take 880,000 low-income people out of the tax net altogether, as well as laws that would aid retirees.
There was no place in the Queen's Speech for proposals to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes or legislation on minimum alcohol pricing, although Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has insisted both plans are still under consideration.
HSBC Chairman Douglas Flint said in a recent speech that proposals to create a minimum public threshold for bail-inable debt could potentially turbo-charge a bank failure.
Business groups and Republicans rounded on Barack Obama on Wednesday over one of the most contentious elements of his state of the union speech: his proposal to increase the minimum wage.
"But with those two exceptions, outside of the Scott Peterson trial, nothing — a speech, a proposal, something in the democratic discourse — nothing will be national news unless it occurs within a ten-minute cab ride of downtown Manhattan or downtown Washington, D.C. Los Angeles, Chicago, St . Louis— they don't exist.
