parliament. it will have been an incredibly difficult decision for her and her advisers to withdraw from today s ceremony, it is a key date in her calendar, one of her most important constitutional duties and in her 70 years on the throne she has only missed the state opening of parliament twice, that was due to pregnancy. this tells you how important it is to her to attend the ceremony but it was decided late on that the physical challenge of the state opening of parliament, walking through the chamber, taking steps to the throne where she would normally deliver the queen s speech, that would be too much for her. she has what buckingham palace have described as episodic mobility problems, it is a slightly odd phrase which means she has good and bad days, she has these mobility issues and some of them willjust be too much, a really significant
was possible, but late afternoon, it was possible, but late afternoon, it was decided that it was just going to be too much for her and she would have to withdraw. we had a statement from buckingham palace saying that she was suffering from a rather strange phrase that they use, episodic mobility problems, and i think really the translation of that is that some days are better than others and sadly this was a day that she was not going to be strong enough to do the state opening. so it falls to her son charles and her grandson william to pick up the reins and in terms of charles today, there will be a couple of changes because it is him delivering the speech. we will not be using the throne that the queen would normally sit on, that will be left empty today we will not be wearing any ceremonial robes, he will wear military uniform, a naval uniform, and the imperial state crown that the queen would either wear or have carried alongside her will be there with the prince of wales and the
is unable to attend because of what the palace described last night as episodic mobility problems. the queen, of course, has had to cancel quite a few appearances in public in the last few months but, in fairness, as my mother keeps on reminding me, her majesty is 96 you know, and these things are to be expected, which i think is a good dose of common sense. it is interesting, chris, when we talk about the way this state opening is playing out. there we saw the prince of wales, a full royal fanfare, arriving for the state opening of parliament and we are seeing him for the first time in a fully formal context, assuming the responsibilities of the monarch. yes, and that is a profound moment and a profound moment in the context of the familiarity of every other element of the ceremony that you
caroline davies, bbc news, odesa. the queen s speech which sets out the british government s legislative programme is one of the great events of state in the uk. but the one which happened on tuesday was a little different because, for the first time in nearly 60 years, queen elizabeth was not there. her majesty had authorised the prince of wales and the duke of cambridge to open the new parliamentary session. prince charles delivered the speech on the queen s behalf, after buckingham palace explained that the queen was suffering from episodic mobility problems . our royal correspondent nicholas witchell examines the significance of today s events. he s been waiting for his destiny for longer than any other heir to british throne. and, while no one is suggesting that a major change is imminent, the inescapable fact is that a transition is under way. and this, today, was the most