Tuesday's opinion page pieces concentrated on the rights and wrongs of holding the Queen's Speech, with all the usual pomp attached, at a time when a general election by the end of the year is expected. Here is The Herald’s pick of those editorials.
The Independent
It's leader accused the Prime Minister of embroiling the Queen into a party political charade which the palace ought not to have agreed to.
It said the nation was presented with 26 bills, few of which will see their way onto the statute books during what is left of this parliament and "relatively few of them deserve to".
"Just as well, then, that in a few weeks' time this Queen's Speech may be replaced by another one from a different prime minister or a different party," the leader said. "For the piece of legislation most urgently required is the only one that can end the Brexit trauma with a full democratic mandate: a Referendum Bill that will put the Johnson deal (if it exists) or a no-deal Brexit to the people, with the option to Remain in the EU.
"More and more MPs are reluctantly bowing to the logic that a general election is the wrong question: like this Queen's Speech, it would be an utterly futile affair."
The Daily Telegraph
The centre-right daily broadsheet accepted that the Queen's Speech laid out an agenda designed to win an election - saying that it was conceivable that the monarch had opened the shortest parliamentary session since September 1948. Then, the Labour government lasted 10 days.
"If the State Opening served any purpose beyond the ceremonial it was to act as a shop window for the 'One Nation' policies the Conservatives under Boris Johnson will put before the country when the election comes," said its leader.
"MPs will vote on the Queen's Speech programme next week and, with no majority, the chances must be high that the Government will lose, an eventuality that in the past has forced prime ministers from office. Mr Johnson says he will not resign because that would let Mr Corbyn into No 10," the paper said.
"Yet if Labour defeats the Queen's Speech, the logic of its position must be to support the general election it has demanded for so long. The party cannot keep ducking this challenge and retain any credibility."
The Times
The Queen's Speech forced parliament to focus "briefly" on the many pressing challenges facing the country that have been "neglected" amid the Brexit turmoil, says the paper's leader.
"How much of this will ever find its way into law will of course depend on the outcome of a general election. At that point the Queen will be obliged to come back to parliament and read a new speech. But that did not mean her efforts yesterday were entirely wasted," it said.
"Her participation in this timeless ceremony was a reminder of the stability that has often appeared to be missing during these years of Brexit turmoil, as well as the many pressing issues facing Britain that have been neglected for too long.
"Amid the pomp, the country was offered a glimpse of the normality and progress that it craves and that only a resolution to Brexit can provide. Let's hope that helped to focus parliamentarians' minds for the pressing business of the week ahead."
The Guardian
John Crace, the paper’s Parliamentary sketch writer, pulled no punches in saying that the Queen was reduced to being a furious frontwoman to a "grubby" election stunt.
He said Boris Johnson was at his "most loathsome", further describing him as "arrogant and dismissive" and "not even funny".
"Devoid of detail and morality as he indulged in petty point-scoring," he went on. "A desperate blob interested more in his own survival than that of the country. As are nearly all Tory MPs.
"Principles that were once held sacred on both the leave and remain wings of the party are now up for grabs. Sold to the lowest bidder in return for a Brexit deal appreciably worse than Theresa May’s that would make their constituents appreciably less well off.
"This was an embarrassment. A parliament of all the talentless. What a time it is not to be alive."
The Scotsman.
The paper stated that amidst the the Brexit and Queen's Speech shenanigans a survey had emeged from NHS consultants in Scotland that found that a lack of doctors is putting patients at risk and is pushing the health service to "breaking point".
It said if we are not prepared to increase finances from the public purse, other means of finance need to be found, "raising the prospect of measures such as a fee for GP appointments - or the service will have to be reduced."
The paper said: "These are hugely important questions that society must face. If we choose not to because we are obsessed with Brexit, independence and other forms of 'high' politics, the health service will eventually hit that breaking point.
"Will we finally notice then? Putting NHS staff, many of whom have chosen a difficult career for altruistic reasons, under so much pressure that they become ill is a grimly ironic betrayal on our part. And it is one we may live to regret."
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