State opening of Parliament

Pageantry.

The difference between pageantry and mere tradition is pomp.  Morris dancers, in a pub car park, a group of bearded men enjoying themselves, temporarily free from their traditional artesian morris-men occupations of cooper, smith, chartered accountancy and number two at the bank gathering to annoy the public, that’s traditional.  Add pomp, and you have pageantry.

The state opening of Parliament is pageantry.

The Queen takes the short ride from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster in a horse drawn coach so ornate that the animators at Disney would, if it had been on their drawing pads might have asked ‘too much’?  The footmen, servants, flunkies and, of course, troops of double-hard soldiers, sailors and airmen accompanying her are out of their now-traditional sand and blood-of-the-enemy field wear and in smart dress uniforms.  Even the Parliament flunkies wear tights.  There’s nothing like seeing a monarch hold Parliament in the palm of her hand to assure you that democracy is safe for another year.

There are other traditions too.  The traditional closing-of-the-roads.  Taxi drivers are now a central feature of this, picking up passengers and explaining that because the Mall is closed to traffic, they will have to go on and on and on about this for the duration on the journey.  The traditional overtime-of-the-Met.  Do you know why coppers always look so bloody happy during these occasions?  Because they are on double-time due to having to come in on their holidays.  And of course the traditional putting-out-of-the-crowd-barriers, leaving crossing points manned by smiling policemen who are there to ensure that the public can get across the traffic-free roads in safety without being hit by a passing Cinderella lookie-likie coach.

The public, usually in a rush to get somewhere, put up with this with tremendous patience.  They will wait at crossing points for seemingly no reason because they know that five minutes later, there may well be the clip clop of a monarch swooshing by in guilded glory.

Alternatively, they are held back because their path will soon be crossed by a troop of troops returning to barracks.  The public wait patiently for two reasons.  The first is out of proper respect for the troops in question and because it’s always a bit of a thrill to see the boys and girls in uniform striding briskly.  The second and less widely discussed reason is that British troops have been fighting in bloody conflicts for over a decade now and there is every chance that last week, these smartly turned out young men and women were being shot at by nasty men in beards.  This means that if you kick up a fuss about having to get across now dammit and lunge through the barrier, the natural reaction from the column is going to be to identify a potential threat, shoot you in both legs and then call in a drone strike to ‘make safe’ any explosive vest you may have been wearing.

All in all, better to stand back and enjoy the show.