The legislative programme of the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, a packed agenda of 28 new Bills, was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth yesterday amid traditional pageantry at the opening of a new session of parliament.
The programme, which covers a wide range of issues from transport to animal welfare, immediately came under attack from the Conservative Party, which dubbed it "a rag-bag of measures".
Mr Blair said the central theme of his government's proposed legislation was to "build a Britain of enterprise and fairness for all".
He has set out to project his government as the moderniser of Britain - an image he is keen to maintain in the run-up to the next general election, probably in May 2002. Mr Blair is determined to see Labour win a second term in office. His latest package gives priority to welfare and education reform.
It comes at mid-point of Labour's term in office and contains few surprises. Among the more controversial proposals is a provision to privatise partially the air traffic control service, as set out in a transport Bill.
In an attempt to calm consternation at the move, the government has said it intends keeping safety regulation in the public sector.
The transport Bill also includes mechanisms to bolster rail safety in the wake of the Paddington train disaster in October which killed 31 people and injured 245.
The toughest Bills include a crackdown on absent fathers who do not pay child maintenance and an extension of mandatory drug testing of criminals.
In an attempt to boost Labour's business-friendly profile, an electronic communications Bill was announced to facilitate Internet commerce.
The speech also confirmed intentions to transform the Post Office from a public corporation into a public limited company.
The government also confirmed it would reintroduce a Bill to lower the age of consent for homosexual sex to 16, in line with laws for heterosexuals.
This Bill was blocked by the House of Lords prior to its reform earlier this month. The House has now been stripped of all but 92 of its 700-odd hereditary peers, which could smooth the Bill's passage to law.
But Labour shied away from tackling the issue of giving homosexuals the right to serve in the military.
Police chiefs are to be liable for prosecution for racial discrimination in the ranks under another Bill, which amends Britain's 20-year-old Race Relations Act.
A late addition to the programme was a ban on fur farming, with the main target 13 mink farms where up to 100,000 animals are slaughtered each year.
Labour also moved to fulfil an election pledge to introduce a freedom of information Bill and made clear it would give time for a controversial private Bill to ban fox-hunting.
Mr Blair said: "It is this government that understands that unemployment wastes the assets of this country, that poor education wastes the assets of this country, that crime and bad housing and run-down inner city estates hold people back and that boom and bust destroys enterprise," he said.
The Opposition leader, Mr William Hague, said the government's programme did too little to prepare for the future, too little to widen Britain's advantages over its competitors or make the most of the talents of the British people and contained "nothing that relates to the common-sense instincts of the British people".
Mr Blair's latest raft of proposed legislation was unveiled amid full heraldic ceremony in the traditional queen's speech.
Meanwhile, the Labour maverick, Mr Ken Livingstone, fuelled fresh controversy over his fate as candidate for London mayor yesterday when he attacked party officials who questioned him in a controversial "loyalty test".
"Red Ken", a runaway mayoral favourite with Londoners but a nightmare candidate for Mr Blair, triggered a row on Tuesday when he failed to convince a party selection panel of his commitment to Labour's policies. The deadlock over Mr Livingstone's fate has caused an embarrassing delay in deciding a shortlist of candidates for the Labour ticket, wrecking carefully laid plans by Blair aides to win the publicity they wanted for the ruling party.
Mr Livingstone said he was "amazed and appalled" that extracts from his hour-long interview by the selection panel had been leaked to the press. He said the panel had asked "bizarre" and "aggressive" questions.
Extracts from the interview released to British national media yesterday showed Mr Livingstone telling the selection panel he would stand down as Labour's candidate if the party produced a manifesto he could not agree with.
"Quite clearly, if I were selected as Labour candidate, the manifesto would need to reflect the basic core positions that I put to Labour members when I was selected to stand," he said.
