The full media briefing document has released earlier

…gov.uk/…/The_King_s_Speech_2026_-_background_bri…

My thoughts as follows:

• the steel nationalisation bill could be interesting - the public interest test doesn’t seem to be limited to just steel, could be a good mechanism to forcibly nationalising water companies in the future (which can’t come soon enough)
• it astounds me that bringing back legal aid close to what it was before the ConDem coalition gutted it is going to cost less than 200m in todays money. Fuck Osborne.
• the energy section directly calling out how literally half of all recessions the UK has faced since 1970 have been caused by oil price shocks is great, I love Milibae so much.
• while there is no mention of it here, i really hope the votes at 16 bill ends up including PR for English council and Westminster elections. Labour cannot let Reform take advantage of the FPTP spoiler effect at the next GE.
• I really really hate the immigration and asylum changes, I expect these to be softened through backbench pressure

Overall, on the surface this is still all very incremental. Now, that could well be because this would have been finalised weeks ago, and wording agreed with Brian for his little speech. Or, it could well be because that’s all we’re gonna get regardless of what Starmer says to keep his job.

I really hope it’s the former.

While the last session did have a variety of gaffs, mistakes, and certified fuck ups, a lot of very good shit did also get done. It’s taken 800 years to remove the aristocracy from our parliament. Workers rights have been significantly improved. As have renters. Pretty much everything Miliband has done. We are getting closer to the EU and are no longer questioning whether essential allies are friend or foe. The two child limit has been removed.

I won’t pretend its everything I wanted, it barely scratches the surface, but its a fuck load more than I got in the preceeding 14 years, and that is worth something.