Committee-speak from the Queen
By Graham Davies

It's nice to get things more or less right on occasion. Then again, it didn't take a genius to predict the content of the Queen's speech. (I forgot the stuff about volunteers being the unsung heroes of the community).

Now that the annual address has been aired, as a loyal tax-paying subject, I feel I owe the queen some respectful advice. Here is the topline summary: your content was boring, cliched and patronising. Your delivery was dull and thoroughly insipid, and you looked like Krusty the Clown.

You've been doing this Xmas speech now for 56 years. Time to stop reading the words some committee has come up with. Get some coaching on how to write your own material, together with some coaching on how to say it like the warm grandmother you are.

In 2008 it is time that the Queen of England stopped being the mouthpiece of a civil servant.