As Prime Minister Boris Johnson seeks to re-energize his scandal-plagued administration and confront the UK's rising cost-of-living issue, Parliament opened a new year-long session on Tuesday (May 10) with a combination of royal majesty and raw politics.

        At the State Opening of Parliament, Johnson's Conservative administration will lay out the legislation it hopes to pass in the next year. The 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, who has opted out of the event due to mobility concerns, will not be present.

        Instead, the Queen's Speech, which is written by the government but customarily read by the queen, will be given by her son and heir, Prince Charles. Prince William, the heir to the throne, will also be present. During her 70-year reign, the queen has only missed two prior state openings, in 1959 and 1963, when she was expecting sons Andrew and Edward.

        The address will include 38 laws, including ones dealing with education, animal welfare, and "leveling up" economic opportunity for impoverished areas. Following Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, the address will vow to reduce red tape for businesses and revamp regulation. It might also include provisions to change post-Brexit commercial arrangements for Northern Ireland, which would exacerbate already strained ties between the UK and the EU.

        A contentious new rule will also criminalize disruptive protest methods used by organisations like Extinction Rebellion. Civil liberties groups are concerned that the government will go through with much-discussed proposals to modify Britain's human rights rules following Brexit. The policies listed in the speech, according to Johnson, would "get our nation back on track" and continue "our aim to generate high-wage, high-skilled employment that will drive economic development across our entire United Kingdom."

        However, any major new initiatives to reduce rising grocery and energy costs are unlikely to be included. As the conflict in Ukraine and Western sanctions on energy-rich Russia exacerbated economic turmoil caused by Brexit and the COVID-19 epidemic, Britain's inflation rate exceeded 7%, with domestic energy costs much higher.

        The government has handed most people a tax refund of 150 pounds (US$185), but it has resisted opposition requests for a windfall tax on huge energy companies' earnings, claiming that this would deter them from investing in UK renewable energy projects. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Rishi Sunak acknowledged that the expense of living is "the No. 1 problem" on people's concerns.

        He said, "Of course, I understand." "And what I'm trying to do is make sure we have rules in place to help families get through the next three months, which we know will be difficult." The event takes place only days after Johnson's Conservatives lost hundreds of municipal and regional council seats to opposition parties in local elections throughout the UK.

        Months of news about parties at Johnson's office and other government facilities that violated coronavirus prohibitions have harmed Johnson's personal popularity. When lockdown restrictions prohibited social gatherings in June 2020, Johnson was fined 50 pounds by police for attending his own surprise birthday party.

        Johnson has apologized but denies breaching the rules on purpose. He might face further penalties from other parties, a parliamentary probe into whether he lied to MPs about his actions, and a no-confidence vote from his own members.

        The Conservatives have retaliated by charging that Labour Party leader Keir Starmer breached the rules by eating a takeout curry lunch and a beer with campaign workers in a legislator's office last year. Police have announced that they will examine the issue after days of headlines in conservative media.

        Starmer claims the dinner was part of a workday and that no laws were broken, but he has threatened to leave if he is penalized by authorities.  The official inauguration ceremony is a grandiose production that encapsulates the two aspects of the British constitutional monarchy: royal grandeur and political authority. The monarch — or, in this case, the heir to the throne — rides in a horse-drawn carriage from Buckingham Palace to Parliament, where he gives the address from a gilded throne encrusted with 3,000 jewels.

        Because the king is not permitted to enter the House of Commons, the event takes place in the House of Lords, Parliament's unelected upper house. The king has been forbidden from entering the Commons chamber since King Charles I attempted to arrest members of the House of Commons in 1642 and was ousted, tried, and executed.