It’s always been fun to hear the speech New Labour write for the Queen’s opening of Parliament - they seem to take a perverse delight in making her mangle her own language.

There was less of the usual vacuous management-speak this year but they still found room for an “entrench stability”, an “accelerate modernisation”, a “streamline regulatory structures” and, my favourite this, a “bringing home reversion plans within the scope of the Financial Services Authority”.

The speech also found room for the recently invented New Labour shibboleths, “a culture of respect” and the matching of “rights with responsibilities”. That loaded word “reform” was also mentioned ten times in connection with public services, education, the NHS, the welfare state, “support for housing costs”, pensions, criminal defence services, company law, the Welsh Assembly and the House of Lords (but only in the sense of bringing “forward proposals to continue the reform of the House of Lords” not legislation). Round the reforming rock the respectful, responsible rascal and his rights ran.

Outlined in the speech was a cacophony of putative legislation - it’s going to be a packed parliamentary session. Obviously trivial issues likes reform of the House of Lords had to be sacrificed to make room for the noble aim of cataloguing the population.

Tony Blair sent out some New Labour spam shortly after the speech (picture him with his hand hovering over his mouse ready to click “send” as soon as the speech ended) to rally the party faithful to support the measures outlined by the Queen.

Oddly, it didn’t mention ID cards, the use of biometric data for visa applications, a points system for work permits, the planned proliferation of foundation schools (including primary schools - I bet the Christian fundamentalists are rubbing their hands at the prospect of being able to shape such young minds) and city academies or plans to introduce the new offence of Thoughtcrime (better known as the “Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill” and the conveniently vague offence of “glorifying or condoning” acts of terrorism). Don’t mess with Mister In-Between is the message.

As ever with New Labour, it’s what they’re not telling you that you have to worry about. Some of the proposed legislation are slippery slopes to unpleasant places and I don’t just mean the provision “for compulsion to register at a later stage” in the ID Card Bill.

Take for instance, the Mental Health Bill which “sets out the conditions which have to be met for someone to be treated without their consent”. It’s clearly been drawn up in a knee-jerk reaction to several recent high profile stories of mentally ill people going on berzerker-kill-crazy rampages (copyright, Daily Mail). But with this and the recent concerns expressed about the confidentialty of patients’ records, I wonder how many people might now think twice about going to see their GP the next time they’re feeling a bit low.

Or what about the Asylum and Immigration Bill and its provision of the “ability for authorised third party to collect biometric data”. “Third party” being the turd in this particular sewer. The ID Card bill doesn’t explicitly mention a third party collecting our private details but I think we can take it as a given (on further digging, yep.) A private company with shareholders to please and margins to slash will be in charge of all that lovely gravy.

In summary: the mentally ill, benefit recipients and foreigners. Legislative overkill for society’s ills. Plenty there to satisfy the right-wing press. And not a shred of humility from a government that only one in five voted for. On this showing you’d think they’d been returned on a turnout that would make Saddam Hussein look like an amateur.