Pomp meets politics in Britain's annual Queen's Speech
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Queen Elizabeth II is donning an ermine robe and diamond-studded crown to announce the British government's plans for the coming year at the ceremonial State Opening of Parliament.
The speech is set to contain a mix of bread-and-butter legislative announcements and lofty aspirations from what Prime Minister David Cameron calls his "one-nation government" of compassionate conservatism.
Cameron says the most dramatic prison reforms since the 19th-century will feature in Wednesday's speech, which is written by the government but read out by the monarch from a gilded throne. Cameron says prison governors will be given more powers to ensure that the institutions are no longer "warehouses for criminals."
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The speech is also expected to include measures to clamp down on extremist preachers that will be closely watched by free-speech groups.