Free Republic

A Queen's Speech is meant to be an expression of the power of the executive. The moment when the Government, and No 10 in particular, expresses its power through the words of the Monarch to Parliament. This Queen's Speech though is the first in 39 years given on behalf of a minority Government. And that is a very different beast. The power is with Parliament, both the hung House of Commons and the House of Lords which will not now respect the Salisbury Convention. So the speech needs to breathe consensus and avoid controversy.

The government should rethink its Brexit strategy, following last week's election, according to the engineering industry organisation, the EEF. It said without a more pro-business stance, the resulting political instability may force more firms to alter their plans "away from the UK". The EEF is the latest business organisation to call for a rethink of the government's Brexit plans. It wants access to the single market to be at the heart of Brexit negotiations.

The number of nurses from the European Union registering to work in the UK has fallen by 96% since the Brexit vote last year. Figures collated by the Nursing & Midwifery Council show that the number of new applicants from the EU fell from 1,304 in July last year to just 46 in April this year. The dramatic fall in applicants to work in the UK is likely to place more pressure on the NHS as it grapples with a recruitment crisis, and increase political pressure to secure a guarantee for NHS staff from Brexit negotiations. There are an estimated...

UK Prime Minister Theresa May was clinging to power by her fingernails on Sunday after losing her parliamentary majority in last Thursday's election, as an agreement with the minority Democratic Unionist Party that would keep the Conservatives in power was still not finalized. May's co-chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, handed in their resignations on Saturday following the disastrous election, called by May to strengthen her position ahead of talks to leave the European Union, but which in the end left her weakened.

Prime Minister Theresa May was fighting to hold on to her job on Friday as British voters dealt her a punishing blow, denying her the stronger mandate she had sought to conduct Brexit talks and instead weakening her party's grip on power. With no clear winner emerging from Thursday's parliamentary election, a wounded May signaled she would fight on, despite being on course to lose her majority in the House of Commons. Her Labour rival Jeremy Corbyn said she should step down.