• Britain’s new Labour Party government laid out its plans for “national renewal” at the grand State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday, centering on stabilizing the country’s public finances and spurring economic growth.
• King Charles III delivered the King’s Speech, an announcement of the laws his government intends to pass in the coming year and the centerpiece of the State Opening.
• The speech included 40 bills, compared to the Conservatives’ last speech which had just 21, ranging from house building to nationalizing Britain’s railways.

Britain’s new Labour Party government promised to calm the country’s febrile politics and ease its cost-of-living crisis as it set out its plans for “national renewal” at the grand State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

Stabilizing the U.K.’s public finances and spurring economic growth were at the center of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s legislative agenda, announced in a speech written by government officials and delivered by King Charles III.

“My government will seek a new partnership with both business and working people and help the country move on from the recent cost of living challenges by prioritizing wealth creation for all communities,” the king said in a speech to hundreds of lawmakers and scarlet-robed members of the House of Lords.

KING CHARLES, QUEEN CAMILLA REPORTEDLY PULLED FROM ROYAL OUTING DUE TO SECURITY SCARE

Starmer campaigned on a promise to bring bold change to Britain at modest cost to taxpayers. He aims to be both pro-worker and pro-business, in favor of vast new construction projects and protective of the environment. The risk is he may end up pleasing no one.

In a written introduction to the speech, Starmer urged patience, saying change would require “determined, patient work and serious solutions” rather than easy answers and “the snake oil charm of populism.”

The King’s Speech is the centerpiece of the State Opening, an occasion where royal pomp meets hard-nosed politics, as the king donned a diamond-studded crown, sat on a gilded throne and announced the laws his government intends to pass in the coming year.

Labour won a landslide election victory on July 4 as voters turned on the Conservatives after years of high inflation, ethics scandals and a revolving door of prime ministers. Starmer has promised to patch up the country’s aging infrastructure and frayed public services, but says he won’t raise personal taxes and insists change must be bound by “unbreakable fiscal rules.”

Wednesday’s speech included 40 bills – the Conservatives’ last speech had just 21 – ranging from house building to nationalizing Britain’s railways and decarbonizing the nation’s power supply with a publicly-owned green energy firm, Great British Energy.

The government said it would “get Britain building,” setting up a National Wealth Fund and rewriting planning rules that stop new homes and infrastructure being built.

Economic measures included tighter rules governing corporations and a law to ensure all government budgets get advance independent scrutiny. That aims to avoid a repetition of the chaos sparked in 2022 by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose package of uncosted tax cuts rocked the British economy and ended her brief term in office.

The government promised stronger protections for workers, with a ban on some “zero-hours” contracts and a higher minimum wage for many employees. Also announced were protections for renters against shoddy housing, sudden eviction and landlords who won’t let them have a pet.

KING CHARLES CONTACTS DONALD TRUMP AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

The government promised more power for local governments and better bus and railway services – keys to the “leveling up” of Britain’s London-centric economy that former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised but largely failed to deliver.

Though Starmer eschewed large-scale nationalization of industries, the government plans to take the delay-plagued train operators into public ownership.

Trade unions and business groups gave the economic announcements a tentative welcome. Gary Smith, leader of the GMB union, called the speech a “breath of fresh air.” Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of business group the Confederation of British Industry, said it “sets out a program of big choices and bold moves needed to deliver a shift in gear for the economy.”

The speech said the government “recognizes the urgency of the global climate challenge” — a change in tone from the Conservative government’s emphasis on oil and gas exploration. As well as increasing renewable energy, it pledged tougher penalties for water companies that dump sewage into rivers, lakes and seas.

The speech included new measures to strengthen border security, creating a beefed-up Border Security Command with counter-terrorism powers to tackle people-smuggling gangs.

It follows Starmer’s decision to scrap the Conservatives’ contentious and unrealized plan to send people arriving in the U.K. across the English Channel on a one-way trip to Rwanda.

The speech also tackled an issue that has foxed previous governments: reforming the House of Lords. The unelected upper chamber of Parliament is packed with almost 800 members – largely lifetime political appointees, with a smattering of judges, bishops and almost 100 hereditary aristocrats. The government said it would remove the “outdated and indefensible” presence of hereditary nobles, though there was no mention of Labour’s promise to set a Lords retirement age of 80.

There also was no mention of its pledge to lower the voting age from 18 to 16, though the government still plans to do it before the next election.

While Starmer’s agenda marks a break with the defeated Conservative government of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he has revived Sunak’s plan to stop future generations from smoking by gradually raising the minimum age for buying tobacco.

The speech confirmed that the government wants to “reset the relationship with European partners” roiled by Britain’s exit from the European Union in 2020 and said there would be no change to Britain’s strong support for Ukraine.

Wednesday’s address was the second such speech delivered by Charles since the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022.

He traveled from Buckingham Palace to Parliament in a horse-drawn carriage – past a small group of anti-monarchy protesters with signs reading “Down with the Crown” – before donning ceremonial robes and the Imperial State Crown to deliver his speech. Police said 10 members of an environmental activist group were arrested near Parliament over alleged plans to disrupt the ceremony.

For all its royal trappings, it is the King’s Speech in name only. The words are written by government officials, and the monarch betrayed no flicker of emotion as he read them out.

“The king has zero agency in this,” said Jill Rutter, senior research fellow at the Institute for Government think tank.

Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has hailed the former president’s defiant response to his attempted assassination in a rousing speech to the Republican National Convention, casting his boss as a tough fighter who also cares deeply about the United States and its people.

Accepting the nomination for vice president at the RNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, the Ohio senator largely eschewed aggressive rhetoric in favour of an upbeat message, pointing to Trump’s reaction in the moments after he was shot during a campaign rally on Saturday as proof of his leadership and love of country.

“What did he call for us to do with our country? To fight, to fight for America. Even in his most perilous moment, we were on his mind,” Vance said.

“His instinct was for us, for our country, to call us to something higher, to something greater, to once again be citizens who ask what our country needs from us.”

Vance, who described Trump as an “idiot” and “reprehensible” in the leadup to the 2016 election, said the tycoon-turned-politician had endured “abuse, slander and persecution” to serve his country.

“Now, consider what they said: They said he was a tyrant, they said he must be stopped at all costs,” Vance said.

“But how did he respond? He called for national unity, for national calm, literally right after an assassin nearly took his life.”

Seeking to portray a softer side to Trump, who is known for his acerbic rhetoric and vitriolic attacks against critics, Vance said that the Republican was also a devoted father and grandfather as well as a successful businessman and politician.

“He’s the man who is feared by America’s adversaries but two nights ago – and I’ll share a moment – said goodnight to his two boys, told them he loved them and made sure to give each of them a kiss on the cheek,” Vance said.

“And I will say, Don and Eric squirmed the same way my four-year-old does when his daddy tries to give him a kiss on the cheek.”

Vance, who rose to national fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, repeatedly appealed to working-class voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, recalling growing up in a “small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands and loved their God”.

“I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from,” he said.

The three “Rust Belt” states flipped from Trump to Biden in 2020 and are considered crucial to the outcome of the election in November.

Vance said President Joe Biden had for half a century been a champion of “every single policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer”, including the free trade deal, NAFTA, and the war in Iraq.

Once a harsh critic of Trump, Vance transformed into one of the former president’s staunchest defenders during his successful run for a Senate seat in Ohio in 2022.

The former US marine, who at 39 is the first millennial vice presidential candidate, is widely seen as a potential future leader of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, which has reshaped the Republican Party along populist and nationalist lines.

During his short political career, Vance has embraced much of Trump’s agenda, including calling for the deportation of undocumented migrants and expressing scepticism about military intervention and foreign alliances.

Earlier on Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr, Donald Trump’s eldest son, also invoked the attempt on his father’s life, saying his response embodied the “true spirit of America”.

“What was my father’s instinct as his life was on the line? Not to cower, not to surrender, but to show for all the world to see that the next American president has the heart of a lion,” he said.

Other speakers on the third day of the convention included Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Florida House Representative Matt Gaetz and former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro, who was released from prison hours earlier after serving a four-month sentence for refusing to cooperate with a congressional probe into the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

Invoking the familiar theme of political persecution, Navarro, without evidence, accused Biden and “his department of injustice” of putting him in prison.

“I’ve got a very simple message for you: If they can come for me – and if they can come for Donald Trump – careful, they will come for you,” Navarro said.

The evening also featured a number of speakers from outside politics, including relatives of US personnel killed during Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the parents of Omer Neutra, a US citizen who is believed to be held in Hamas captivity in Gaza.

“He turned 22 on October 14, 2023, and instead of celebrating with us and with his friends, he spent his birthday as a hostage of Hamas terrorists,” Omer’s mother, Orna Neutra, told the crowd.

“Imagine, over nine months, not knowing whether your son is alive, waking up every morning, praying that he, too, is waking up every morning, that he is strong and he is surviving.”

As he did on the first two days of the convention, Trump, who will give his keynote speech on Thursday, received rapturous applause as he entered the Fiserv Forum as a version of the song, It’s A Man’s World, played.

Trump has signalled unity will be a key theme of his address, saying his close brush with death inspired him to rewrite the speech he had originally planned.

Viggo Mortensen called out Amazon in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine for the company’s decision to scrap an extensive theatrical release for Ron Howard’s 2022 movie “Thirteen Lives” and give it a global streaming launch instead. Mortensen, who starred in the well-reviewed Thai cave rescue thriller opposite Colin Farrell and Joel Edgerton, said the film was a “really good movie” that MGM intended to give a full blown theatrical release to after “they did their test screenings for that movie and got the highest scores in the history of that studio.”

“They were going to put it out worldwide in many, many, many thousands of theaters,” Mortensen said. “Then Amazon bought MGM, initially promised to respect the deal that MGM had made with Ron Howard, and then they went back on that. Basically you saw that movie for a week in Chicago, New York and LA, London, and that was that. Then you had the streaming, which I thought was really sad. It’s a really well-shot movie.”

“Thirteen Lives” opened in select theaters on July 29, 2022 and launched on Prime Video on Aug. 5, 2022. The movie earned solid reviews, with many critics comparing the film favorably to Howard’s previous ticking-clock survival thriller “Apollo 13.”

“They have all their excuses for why they did that, but it comes down to greed,” Mortensen said about Amazon. “How much money do you need? I think Amazon could certainly have respected the deal, as they said they were going to, and released it widely in theaters and let it have its run. And then they could have also made money streaming. But they figured it would be more cost-effective — i.e., they would make more money — if they didn’t have to bother with spending money on promoting it and putting in theaters and sharing that money with theaters, frankly. That’s what it comes down to. To me, it’s greed.”

“For a guy with such a storied career like Ron Howard, who has made so much money for studios, who was so deservedly well-recognized as a filmmaker historically — to do that to a guy like him I think is appalling,” the actor added. “He’s a very nice guy, so he hasn’t gone out there complaining about it, but I’m happy to do it for him. I’m not speaking for him, I’m just speaking for myself. I think it was shameful what they did.”

Mortensen also sounded off on the current state of film criticism, saying “what passes for critical thinking in terms of reviews is pretty poor” these days.

“In terms of the reviewer having some understanding of film history, how movies are made — the level is really low,” he added. “There are some good reviewers, some really interesting conversations are had from journalists in terms of their reactions to films, but it’s not great. As a director, certainly as a director-producer, I pay attention. It matters to me more, a lot more than as an actor because the fate of the movie, whether it’s going to be distributed well, whether it’s going to be seen in movie theaters — a lot hangs in the balance as to how it’s received critically.”

Head over to Vanity Fair’s website to read Mortensen’s latest profile in its entirety.