With just six months to go until the General Election, it should surprise no-one that the last Queen’s Speech of this parliament was deeply political and aimed at drawing clear dividing lines between Government and Opposition for the fraught battle ahead.

Even before Her Majesty read out the legislative programme, Lord Mandelson and other senior ministers held an election-style news conference at Labour HQ, underlining the fact – if any emphasis were needed – that the starting pistol to the election has been fired.

The First Secretary of State denied the speech was about electioneering, insisting it was simply about presenting a "very strong and rich policy agenda". Yet the package of populist measures seemed to confirm the PM was intent on ticking boxes for many of the political agenda’s most sensitive headline-grabbing issues.

So, having already flagged up an exit strategy on Afghanistan this week, his legislative programme: targets greedy bankers with a Financial Services Bill; seeks to help the elderly with a Personal Care at Home Bill – albeit only in England; guarantees a child a good education through the Families Bill – again only south of the border; cracks down on anti-social behaviour with the Crime and Security Bill; seeks to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor by means of the Equality Bill and helps the poorest with their fuel bills via the Energy Bill.

He also announced four new measures to combat youth unemployment, including training guarantees and "high-quality" internships for graduates out of work for more than six months. Plus, there is the Fiscal Responsibility Bill that enshrines in law the UK Government’s plan to halve the national deficit over four years.

Of course, this does not have to be in a bill at all but, politically, it enables Labour to challenge the Conservatives on how quickly and deeply they would cut public services.

However, the Tories claimed that Labour was producing "Alice in Wonderland" legislation because the number of parliamentary days left before the expected spring poll means that few if any of the bills stand a chance of getting on to the statute book.

Lord Strathclyde, the Tory leader in the Upper House, has made clear his colleagues are ready to block most of the bills while insisting, of course, there will be full and proper scrutiny of them.

The Opposition pointed out how there was nothing about the NHS – their own main election focus – in the speech and not a jot about the Kelly report into cleaning up Westminster, parts of which will require new legislation.

The reality is much of what was presented will end up forming the basis of Labour’s election manifesto.

This will certainly be true of the Government’s position on the Calman Commission’s report on giving the Scottish Parliament more powers.

It had always been thought Gordon Brown would be positive about backing Calman given the PM’s initial reaction to the report – that it was "bold and imaginative" – and given this appears to be where the public consensus lies.

Yesterday, Jim Murphy was fulsome in his support for the package that includes allowing Holyrood to raise tax by 10p in the pound with a consequent reduction in the annual block grant from London. The idea is to make Edinburgh more accountable in that if it has to raise the money, it will be more responsible in spending it.

While the SNP insisted there was nothing stopping the Government from legislating for enhanced powers ahead of the election, the Scottish Secretary made clear this would not happen.