TIARAS, top hats and turbans - but not a Scottish Nationalist in sight.

Her Majesty's SNP does not do lords and ladies but is officially pro-monarchy, apart from, that is, a few - whisper it quietly - republicans.

The state opening of Parliament is, according to the official programme, a "collar day", which means the Upper Chamber becomes a tight-buttoned, straight-backed sea of lordly crimson and ermine. In the middle sat the judiciary in their imposing full-bottomed wigs and over in one corner were the foreign ambassadors in all their exotic finery.

The gilded chamber shimmered with all the bejewelled toffery; blue-collar Conservatism had been abandoned for the day.

After the pantomime parade of the Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary, the Portcullis Pursuivant, and, of course, how could we forget, the Clarenceaux King of Arms, had arrived, Brenda appeared, the large bauble wobbling slightly on her head.

The chamber respectfully rose as one. HMQ carefully sat down on the goldest of golden thrones and told her faithful barons and baronesses to do likewise.

And there they sat for a good five minutes, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the riff-raff down the corridor to turn up for the Gracious Speech.

A well-scrubbed Michael Gove, the newly-installed Lord Chancellor, looking the part in his black and gold robe, kept looking over his shoulder to see whether his big moment to hand the Queen her speech had arrived.

Then, off in the distance, the low hum of chattering MPs could be heard as they made their way to the gilded chamber. Prince Philip, sitting on a throne just a couple of inches lower than his wife, looked as bored as bored could be. Internally, he was no doubt shouting: "Get on with it!"

The boredom lasted just another 20 minutes before the Lords creaked to their feet and HMQ left for lunch. Attention now turned to the lower orders.

In the Commons, the speeches were, as convention dictates, filled with friendly exchanges.

One had Harriet Harman positively cringing when, at the despatch box as acting Labour leader, she had to congratulate, through gritted teeth, the Tory toff on his General Election victory.

Hattie also had a pop at the SNP over the Battle of Buttockburn; aka the row over who sits where. She quipped: "The lion might be roaring in Scotland but don't mess with the beast of Bolsover."

The beast, veteran socialist Dennis Skinner, was sitting nearby in his front-row aisle seat, having earlier admitted that he had foregone his regular state opening joke because he had been too preoccupied with saving the Labour rebels' bench from those nasty Nationalists.

Later, as the SNP champion Angus Robertson puffed out his chest - he's now the leader of the third party, you know - and was delivering his Nationalist homily, his chums applauded loudly.

Up popped the frowning Speaker to tick off, ever so gently, the Nats for clapping, making clear that, in Her Majesty's Gothic palace, we just don't do that sort of thing, don't you know.