THE Queen came to the Lords yesterday to sit on her beautiful golden throne and tell us how terrible things are out there. She said that the kingdom was full of crime and disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, terrorism and fear.

I’m sure she wanted to say something nicer but she was, after all, not responsible for the actual content. The Queen is only the messenger, albeit one wearing a lovely velvet train and some rather snazzy golden T-bar sandals.

With the real world being so scary, it was a relief to be as far away from it as possible. Only last week the Lords was the scene of terrible angst over foxhunting. Yesterday all of that seemed long gone, for the chamber was like something out of a fairytale. The multi-tiered candelabra gleamed and the air sparkled with what seemed to be stardust.

The bling factor was high. Some of the women were dressed for the skating rink and the chamber itself was like a winter wonderland where the ice never melts because it is made of diamonds.

I counted no fewer than 40 tiaras. Surely that is a tiara record for the Queen’s Speech and all the more impressive as I doubt whether any came from Claire’s Accessories.

There were two rows of diplomats’ wives who were particularly bejewelled. They sat on the benches just to the left of the Queen. Here the necklines plunged like Niagara Falls and shoulders were encased in silk, satin and furry bits of froufrou.

When the Queen stood up to leave, the women gave her their version of a Mexican wave: a co-ordinated curtsy that swept down the benches with incredible precision. It was, as the sports fans say, awesome.

The speech itself may have been gloomy but at least it was short and gloomy. How depressing, then, to leave this jewel-encrusted world in which nothing bad could ever happen and to venture to the Commons, where something bad was bound to happen. Nothing is short here and no one ever wears a tiara. How drab it seemed! How dull without candelabra, diamonds or ermine. A few Tory women tried to liven things up by wearing what can only be described as a psychopathic mixture of colours.

Anne McIntosh was in contrasting stockings (one black, one red) with matching suit. Another MP, wearing egregious bubblegum pink, approached her on the bench.

“Oh no! Don’t sit together,” cried a Hansard scribe. But they did and, what’s worse, they got away with it. Surely the Government needs to tackle crimes of fashion along with everything else.

It was obvious what the Queen was talking about for the disorder in the Commons began immediately.

The Speaker tried to give an avuncular little lecture on how MPs should behave but was interrupted by the verbal equivalent of spitballs. The Speaker made a joke about this but surely he should have them arrested! He is a disaster at tough love.

Labour’s new slogan is “security and opportunity”. What can it mean? It’s anybody’s guess. In political terms its sheer vapidity is a triumph. Certainly the Opposition leader, Michael Howard, seemed most jealous. He may have stolen it already. Certainly yesterday his theme seemed to be “more security and more opportunity”.

I know that everyone is always saying that the election campaign has just begun but yesterday in the Commons I think that it did. Tony Blair was on especially good form and accused the Tories of living in a fantasy world.

“Fantasy policies are amusing for a fantasy government,” he shouted, “but supposing it became a reality? Then the fantasy becomes a fraud on the British people and is no longer amusing!” Yes, but in a fantasy, everyone can wear a tiara, so it cannot be all bad.

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