London - In a ceremony marked by pomp and circumstance, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II Wednesday set out the government's legislative programme for the remaining months before a general election to be held before June, 2010. The queen, 83, rode from Buckingham Palace to the Westminster parliament, in the horse-drawn carriage used for state occasions, accompanied by her husband, Prince Philip, who is 88.
Inside, following a centuries-old tradition, she read out the key points for the government's legislative programme, which this year highlighted efforts to cut back the huge budget deficit and to curtail excessive bankers' bonuses.
While opinion polls have consistently predicted that the Labour government led by Gordon Brown is almost certain to lose the election - Labour has been in power since 1997 - government ministers insist that the outcome of the poll remains wide open.
The legislative proposals submitted Wednesday include a fiscal responsibility bill, under which the government pledges to strive to halve the budget deficit within four years, and to clamp down on bonuses for bankers who take "reckless and excessive risks."
Britain, which last year invested 50 billion pounds (83 billion dollars) in a major bank rescue scheme, now has an overall public debt burden of 825 billion pounds. The government plans to borrow a further 175 billion pounds over the next two years.
Other bills proposed Wednesday include provisions for the funding of social care for the elderly and legislation to ratify an international ban on cluster bombs agreed in May, 2008.
However, with a maximum of seven months left until the elections, the bulk of the legislation proposed will not be implemented by the current parliament.
Ahead of Wednesday's ceremony, the opposition Liberal Democrats had called on the government to "axe" this year's lavish ceremony and to replace it with reforms to "clean up politics" following the scandal over the abuse of parliamentary expenses earlier this year.
The "glitz and glamour" of the occasion was based on "a complete fiction" because there were only 70 days of parliamentary sittings left until the election, said Nick Clegg, the Liberal Party leader.
