Queen's Speech: Hung Parliament means this is a very different beast

A Queen's Speech is meant to be an expression of the power of the executive.

The moment when the Government, and No 10 in particular, expresses its power through the words of the Monarch to Parliament.

This Queen's Speech though is the first in 39 years given on behalf of a minority Government. And that is a very different beast.

The power is with Parliament, both the hung House of Commons and the House of Lords which will not now respect the Salisbury Convention.

So the speech needs to breathe consensus and avoid controversy. And that is what it does domestically.

Four Bills pre-announced overnight are all designed to communicate cross party consensus on issues such as domestic violence and ending letting fees for tenants (famously proposed by Ed Miliband and taken up by Theresa May).

Banished to history are manifesto promises such as the so-called "dementia tax", millions losing the winter fuel allowance and the vote on lifting the fox hunting ban.

The PM will promise to respond to the message the electorate sent "with humility and resolve", that she will "work hard every day to gain trust and confidence of the British people" and get a Brexit deal which "commands maximum public support".

Backbench Tory MPs believed that the speech should be "short" to allow for the grinding work of the passage of the Great Repeal Bill. Other Brexit-related Bills include ones on immigration and trade.

Finding consensus on that will be trickier.

Already as Paste BN reports, 30 Tory MPs have told the Government that they will not accept a "No Deal" Brexit outcome.

This is a direct rebuke to the stated strategy of both DEXEU (Department for Exiting the EU) and the PM from her Lancaster House strategy.

On the other side, Brexit-backing MPs have suggested a leadership contest would follow any "softening" of the Brexit plan to leave the single market and customs union.

Can the DUP help steady the ship? At the moment they are unhappy over money, and perhaps more importantly there are different DUP voices arguing different approaches.

Some fear that propping up a Conservative government will toxify the DUP. Tories argue the reverse.

It is not an auspicious backdrop to a deal supporting any Government, let alone one which risks seeing the UK Government taking one side of the Northern Ireland sectarian divide, as Sir John Major argued.

Already this minority Government is facing external challenges to its authority - from the Bank of England Governor gently ribbing the Foreign Secretary about Brexit being "a land of cake" to police chiefs openly complaining about cuts at this testing time.

After this election every corner of the House of Commons, not to mention the Lords too, now has much of the power previously held at No 10.

It is not what she had anticipated - but it is the new reality. A hung parliament is an instruction to politicians to work together.

It is Mrs May's job to try to make that work.