The Queen talks brollies

I almost dropped my croissant in my cullen skink when I heard Her Majesty say from her gilded pedestal during her speech yesterday:

"The role of umbrellas, brollies and gamps in our public services will be enhanced"

When she says "our", obviously she means "the poor's". I doubt she has ever held an umbrella in her life - always has some one to do it for her (the Umbrellequerry-at-arms-length). But it is a great result. No primary legislation or anything concrete but I'll take a hollow promise any day. It's what I have been saying for years. So if it happens I will be taking sole credit as usual.

And the news that the government will allow more schools to become academies is great news for my members who are educational brollies even if it is likely to be disastrous for pupils. Especially as the focus seems to be be on outstanding schools and not failing ones in poorer areas. It's almost as if the Tories are back in power again. Still having a system where local people can take an interest in the running of schools is good. We could call these people governors. Or we could pay people to receive training and let them run schools. We could call these teachers. Still I am sure By Jove Gove knows what he is doing. Putting the Gove into Governor.

I also hear that constabularies are going to be invited to become police academies, with hilarious consequences at first, but getting steadily less funny as time goes on.

But the promised cuts on quangos are horrific for those of us who like getting some extra wedge chairing as many things as possible. I would have thought the Tory backbenchers will be wholly against such a blatant attack on their supplementary sources of income.

Sorry got a bit sidetracked there talking about things that are nothing to do with BUBB. Business as usual really.

Other than that I thought it was a poor Queen gig. I even suspect that she didn't actually write the speech herself but was reading it from a script. The bit about "putting a cap on the number of darkies we let in" was definitely Philip's contribution, for example.

Indeed I wasn't sure at first if it was even the Queen. I had seen a news story about someone being removed from public land for squatting and thought they'd finally cottoned onto the whole Royal Family dodge. And then got Helen Mirren in to give the speech and keep up the whole sorry charade.

But they were on about Brian Haws, the Parliament Square protestor who in a great start for the Bogg Society was arrested for taking part in community activism. Though again when I saw another report that said a tight knit, slightly grubby group of people had been removed from Westminster area for dangerous political views my first reaction was that the coalition had been voted out.

Honestly, you couldn't help but be proud of the pomp and circumstance. As I saw the Queen arriving in her shiny carriage I thought "I can see an area where we can make some immediate cuts". And how she keeps a straight face during the bits of the speech where she talks about fairness and freedom for all I don't know.

Talking of cuts, the axe has already swung with the brilliant Future Jobs for Fund for trainee gamprentices having its funding ended in 2011. I say it is brilliant and I should know as it was my idea. The government have called it ineffective. The cheek, eh? What is particularly embarrassing is that it was only a few weeks ago that I was crowing about how I had saved the fund. And I even admitted that I may have inadvertently reminded the Tories of something they could cut which they didn't even know about (see fourth para onwards here).

However, I will try and put a positive spin on this by saying that at least they are honouring the existing funding. Sector - bow down to me and praise my work.

And other brollies are finding that contracts are being ended for no good reason, especially ones providing much needed shelter in developing countries. The government spin machine is implying that the brollies are at fault for having frivolous patterns. This is defamation and as regular readers know, those who diss brollies get their butts kicked.

Fortunately, my very good friend (who is no doubt dying with embarrassment as she reads that I regard us as friends) the lawyer Gratin Maris-Piper of Spanners will be all over this like mash on a cottage pie.