In a crystal coach drawn by six white horses, Queen Elizabeth rode in state last week to the Palace of Westminster for the ceremonial opening of a new Parliament. Seldom has that arcane ritual seemed more at odds with reality. Elizabeth's "most gracious speech from the throne," written for the monarch by the first Labor government in her eleven-year reign, was a catalogue of welfare statism that immediately challenged the Tories' disposition to let the new administration "play itself in." Gambling its slender, five-seat majority in the House of Commons, Labor declared its determination to renationalize the steel industry,...
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