Democracy halted

The political life of the nation is being put on hold for the rest of this month at a moment of real crisis.

Today is the first day of a ten-day period of official mourning for the Queen. At lunchtime MPs will begin tributes to the late monarch which will continue until 10PM, before resuming again all day on Saturday.

There will be no significant government announcements at any point and Parliament is unlikely to resume, for any significant period, until next month. Campaigning by all the major parties has been stopped. Meanwhile civil servants will be advised to wear black and an official ‘guide to national mourning’ will be issued by the government.

As inflation soars and thousands of small businesses risk going bust, democracy in the UK will effectively come grinding to a halt.

After a long summer in which the work of government all but ended, in order to allow the Conservative Party to talk to itself for seven weeks, we have now been thrown back into yet another period of stasis.

While the work of government will continue, our new Prime Minister, who is about to implement a series of policies with massive implications for the UK economy, will face little scrutiny.

Whatever your views of the Queen and the monarchy, this is hard to justify.