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The Pageantry in Pictures

The State Opening of Parliament is the main ceremonial event in Parliament's year, when the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh travel up the Mall by horse-drawn carriage to deliver a speech in the House of Lords on the Government's legislative plans for the coming year. She is escorted on the short journey by the Household Cavalry, seen here preparing for duty.

The Queen arrives at the Sovereign's Entrance at 11.15am.

Her crown and mace are sent ahead of her in their own coaches, and carefully handed over once they arrive at the Palace of Westminster.

The Queen and the Duke walk to the robing room where she is helped to don on the Imperial State Crown and parliamentary robe.

The Queen and the Duke lead a procession through the Royal Gallery to take their place on golden thrones at the head the House of Lords while MPs are summoned to her presence.

Baroness Thatcher among the hundreds of peers clad in colourful robes as they wait for the official known as Black Rod to summon the MPs from the House of Commons.

The MPs stand behind the Bar of the House of Lords, at the opposite end from the Queen, to hear the Queen's Speech. Although the Queen reads it out, the content of the speech is entirely written and approved by the Government. It contains an outline of proposed new laws to be passed in the coming year.

Once the Speech is delivered, the Queen's role is done and she leaves Westminster.

This year the Queen may have been in a hurry as she travelled back up the Mall, as she had another engagement scheduled this afternoon, to open the refurbished St Pancras station.

At the window of Buckingham Palace Lady Louise Windsor, the Queen's granddaughter, waits with her mother the Countess of Wessex for a glimpse of the returning coach.

What Gordon said to David

When Tony Blair and David Cameron walked through Parliament together last year to listen to the Queen's Speech, apparently they were having an animated chat about what the Prime Minister thought of the actor who played him in the film The Queen.
This year there wasn't the same repartee between the party leaders, as the new Prime Minister used the three minute stroll to deliver a monologue and the leader of the Opposition managed no more than the occasional "yes... yes".
Adam Boulton, Sky News's veteran political commentator, was for once at a loss to guess what was said. "I never noticed before that David Cameron is three inches taller than Gordon Brown," was all he could manage.

Where did you get that hat?

The guests gathered for today's state opening of the new session of Parliament boasted the usual sprinkling of foreign diplomats and dignitaries.
Among them was this man, who appears to have solved the issue of where his next glass of champagne is coming from.

'Oo shot the 'arriers?

As silence fell after Black Rod issued his demand to the House of Commons summoning MPs into the Queen's presence, a voice piped up from the backbenches.
"Oo shot the 'arriers?" it demanded - no doubt a tasteless and ill-timed reference to the recent controversy over whether Prince Harry, the Queen's grandson and a keen sportsman, was implicated in the shooting dead of two hen harriers, a protected bird species, on the royal estate at Sandringham.
The prince was questioned about the incident and police sent a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, but it emerged today that no-one is to face charges.
The camera did not show the identity of the speaker who perpetrated such lese majeste, but the voice had a strong northern accent - an accent not dissimilar to that of Dennis Skinner, the irreverent Labour MP known as the Beast of Bolsover.

A Bright Spot on One's Horizon

One of the small tweaks introduced this year to the pomp and circumstance of the Queen's Speech will come as some relief to her Majesty.

In previous years the Queen has been forced to wait for ten minutes or more on the huge, ornate throne in the House of Lords while the gentleman usher Black Rod marches right across the Palace of Westminster to collect the MPs from the House of Commons and lead them into the upper chamber.
This year, Sky News informs us, Black Rod has been allowed to wait in the central lobby so that he can round up the Commons and usher them in as quickly as possible. Which is nice, when one has to hang around in a great big heavy crown.

His Jackness has a new outfit

One eagerly awaited highlight of today's Queen's speech is the outfit to be worn by Jack Straw, the new Minister of Justice who will take on the ceremonial role once performed by the Lord Chancellor.
Suspicion has lingered that Mr Straw is vain since his sudden appearance three years ago without the thick-lensed glasses he used to wear, apparently after undergoing laser eye surgery.