Speech therapy

Despite the ermine, diamonds, pomp and pageantry, it was, inevitably, a recession-driven Queen's Speech. The new economic reality resulted in a raft of measures to protect savers and help those paying mortgages and the unceremonious ditching of some of the most contentious Bills proposed in the draft Queen's Speech. No tears will be shed at the loss of a data communications Bill which would allow the government to store details of all telephone and e-mail communications, and website traffic in a single database. Instead, the economic freefall has resulted in a series of hastily-written pre-Christmas financial tokens of help for those feeling the fall-out.