The Starmer Tsunami and Paris 2024

A good UK election. The Starmer Tsunami.

In the UK we had, as expected, a very decisive result. 

What a beautiful map:

Election results by colour: Labour red, Conservative blue, LibDems orange

The new government intends to hit the road running and has outlined 40 new bills in the King's Speech that it intends to implement. It's an impressive list with only a couple of very left wing bills, presumably to keep the left of the party happy. 

The Downing Street briefing document about the king’s speech mentions 40 bills, many of which were not referred to by the king. Here is the full list.

Economic stability and growth

Budget Responsibility Bill
National Wealth Fund Bill
Pension Schemes Bill
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
Employment Rights Bill
English Devolution Bill
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
Better Buses Bill
Railways Bill
Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill
Arbitration Bill
Product Safety and Metrology Bill
Digital Information and Smart Data Bill
High Speed Rail (Crewe to Manchester) Bill

Great British Energy and clean energy superpower

Great British Energy Bill
The Crown Estate Bill
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (Revenue Support Mechanism) Bill
Water (Special Measures) Bill

Secure borders, cracking down on anti-social behaviour and take back our streets

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
Crime and Policing Bill
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill
Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill

Break down the barriers to opportunity

Children’s Wellbeing Bill
Skills England Bill
Renters’ Rights Bill
Football Governance Bill

Health

Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Mental Health Bill
National security and serving the country
Hillsborough Law (this will be a bill, but No 10 has not said what it will be called)
Armed Forces Commissioner Bill
Northern Ireland Legacy Legislation (this involves repealing the Northern Ireland Troubles [Legacy and Reconciliation] Act, but the No 10 says repeal will require passing a new, replacement bill)
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
Cyber Security and Resilience Bill
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill
Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill
Holocaust Memorial Bill

Draft bills

Draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill
Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill
Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
Draft Conversion Practices Bill

We can review progress as the parliament progresses to see how much of this they actually manage to get done. With such a large majority, they should be able to move relatively fast. It will be very impressive if they get much of it done.

We are now three weeks in to the new government and they certainly seem to be running with a gusto that was lacking before!

The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris - Opening Ceremony

The first Olympic Games in Paris for 100 years opened with a very memorable ceremony: for good reasons and bad ones. The highlights such as the golden hot air balloon, the dazzling light displays from the Eiffel Tower, the opening pyrotechnics, the boats on the Seine, Céline Dion, all look amazing in a 10 minute 'best of' video. However, there were complaints from Christian groups over the Last Supper scene, some considered Marie Antoinette's singing decapitated head in bad taste and above all, it was too long and too wet!

Personally, my only real criticism was the poor quality of some of the images because of the rain. The cameras were insufficiently protected so we had to watch some parts through a lens covered in raindrops. But congratulations to Emmanuel Macron whose speech was by far the best of the lot. It was only 14 words:

"Je proclame ouverts les Jeux de Paris célébrant la 33e olympiade des temps modernes"

President Emmanuel Macron, July 26th 2024