Queen's seven-minute speech has UK opposition pasting Brown government

London, Nov.19 (ANI): The Gordon Brown Government has been accused of desperate electioneering after Queen Elizabeth delivered the briefest of speeches, lasting seven minutes on the achievements of Labour since it came to power 12 years ago.Brown was said to have squandered the chance to clean up Parliament with legislation to end the expenses gravy train.

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The speech gave plans for just 13 new laws, the Guardian reports.

Sleaze watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, attacked the omission of new laws covering MPs' expenses as "disappointing".

And Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: "The Queen's Speech should have been replaced by an emergency program of electoral reform."

The speech, delivered in the Lords by the Queen, did include promises to regulate City bonuses, halve the national deficit, enshrine school standards in law, offer free care to the elderly and get tough on parents of Asbo kids.

But with as few as 33 days of Parliamentary time left before a General Election, critics dubbed the measures a cynical - and doomed - bid to win votes.

Challenging Labour to go to the polls now, Tory leader David Cameron said: "They have run out of money, they have run out of time, they have run out of ideas and we have just seen from the Prime Minister they have run out of courage as well." (ANI)