Longest monarch’s speech at State Opening of Parliament for more than 20 years
The speech took nearly 13 minutes for the King to read out loud.
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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
The King’s Speech ran to 1,421 words, making it the longest monarch’s speech at a State Opening of Parliament since 2003.
It was also the most legislation-heavy speech for nearly two decades, with its 40 Bills being the highest number to be announced at a State Opening since 2005.
The text of this year’s speech took 12 minutes and 44 seconds for the King to read out loud, more than a minute longer than last year’s speech, which took him 11 minutes and 29 seconds to deliver.
It was the longest text, by word count, since the 1,448-word speech delivered by Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II, at the 2003 State Opening of Parliament.
The longest monarch’s speech since the Second World War occurred in November 1999, when the late Queen had to deliver a speech containing 1,751 words.
The text, which took more than 15 minutes to read out, came midway through Tony Blair’s first Labour government.
The 40 Bills in this year’s speech – 36 full Bills and four draft Bills – is the highest number to be outlined at a State Opening since 2005, when 50 were announced (44 full Bills and six drafts).
The 2005 speech followed the third successive general election victory by Labour under Tony Blair.
The packed legislative programme for the first session of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government is a marked contrast to the final session of the last Labour government under Gordon Brown, which began in November 2009 with a Queen’s Speech that contained just 13 Bills.
This year’s speech ranks as the seventh longest, by word count, since the end of the Second World War.
The longest monarchs’ speeches since 1945 have all been under Labour prime ministers, with Tony Blair’s 1997-2001 government accounting for three of the top five.
Among the five shortest speeches is the first one delivered by the late Queen, which took place in November 1952 and was just 799 words long.
The shortest speech since the war occurred in November 2009, totalled just 735 words and took six-and-a-half minutes to deliver.
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