queen's speech writer

Queen's Speech 2021 in full: Listen or read as Her Majesty delivers government's agenda

• Boris Johnson
• Queen's Speech
• Tuesday 11 May 2021 at 11:22pm

ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston runs through what was included, and not included, in the Queen's speech

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons.

My government’s priority is to deliver a national recovery from the pandemic that makes the United Kingdom stronger, healthier and more prosperous than before.

To achieve this, my government will level up opportunities across all parts of the United Kingdom, supporting jobs, businesses and economic growth and addressing the impact of the pandemic on public services.

My government will protect the health of the nation, continuing the vaccination programme and providing additional funding to support the NHS .

My ministers will bring forward legislation to empower the NHS to innovate and embrace technology.

Patients will receive more tailored and preventative care, closer to home [Health and Care Bill].

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Measures will be brought forward to support the health and wellbeing of the nation, including to tackle obesity and improve mental health. Proposals on social care reform will be brought forward.

My government will build on the success of the vaccination programme to lead the world in life sciences, pioneering new treatments against diseases like cancer and securing jobs and investment across the country.

My ministers will oversee the fastest ever increase in public funding for research and development and pass legislation to establish an advanced research agency [Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill].

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Following the unprecedented support provided to businesses during the pandemic, proposals will be brought forward to create and support jobs and improve regulation.

My government will strengthen the economic ties across the union, investing in and improving national infrastructure.

Proposals will be taken forward to transform connectivity by rail and bus [High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill] and to extend 5G mobile coverage and gigabit capable broadband [Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill].

Legislation will support a lifetime skills guarantee to enable flexible access to high quality education and training throughout people’s lives [Skills and Post-16 Education Bill].

Measures will be introduced to ensure that support for businesses reflects the United Kingdom’s strategic interests and drives economic growth [Subsidy Control Bill].

Laws will simplify procurement in the public sector [Procurement Bill]. Eight new Freeports will create hubs for trade and help regenerate communities [National Insurance Contributions Bill].

My government will ensure that the public finances are returned to a sustainable path once the economic recovery is secure.

Measures will be brought forward to ensure that children have the best start in life, prioritising their early years.

My ministers will address lost learning during the pandemic and ensure every child has a high quality education and is able to fulfil their potential.

My government will help more people to own their own home whilst enhancing the rights of those who rent.

Laws to modernise the planning system, so that more homes can be built, will be brought forward, along with measures to end the practice of ground rents for new leasehold properties [Planning Bill, Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill].

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My ministers will establish in law a new Building Safety Regulator to ensure that the tragedies of the past are never repeated [Building Safety Bill].

Measures will be brought forward to address racial and ethnic disparities and ban conversion therapy .

Legislation will support the voluntary sector by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and releasing additional funds for good causes [Dormant Assets Bill, Charities Bill].

My government will invest in new green industries to create jobs, while protecting the environment.

The United Kingdom is committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and will continue to lead the way internationally by hosting the COP26 Summit in Glasgow.

Legislation will set binding environmental targets [Environment Bill]. Legislation will also be brought forward to ensure the United Kingdom has, and promotes, the highest standards of animal welfare [Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, Kept Animals Bill, Animals Abroad Bill].

My government will strengthen and renew democracy and the constitution. Legislation will be introduced to ensure the integrity of elections, protect freedom of speech and restore the balance of power between the executive, legislature and the courts [Electoral Integrity Bill, Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, Judicial Review Bill, Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill].

My ministers will promote the strength and integrity of the union. Measures will be brought forward to strengthen devolved government in Northern Ireland and address the legacy of the past [Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concerns) Bill, Legacy Legislation].

Watch the Queen's Speech in full:

My government will introduce measures to increase the safety and security of its citizens.

Legislation will increase sentences for the most serious and violent offenders and ensure the timely administration of justice [Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill].

Proposals will be brought forward to address violence, including against women and girls, and to support victims [Draft Victims Bill].

Measures will be brought forward to establish a fairer immigration system that strengthens the United Kingdom’s borders and deters criminals who facilitate dangerous and illegal journeys [New Plan for Immigration Legislation].

My government will lead the way in ensuring internet safety for all, especially for children [Draft Online Safety Bill] whilst harnessing the benefits of a free, open and secure internet. My ministers will provide our gallant Armed Forces with the biggest spending increase in thirty years, taking forward their programme of modernisation and reinforcing the United Kingdom’s commitment to NATO.

My ministers will honour and strengthen the Armed Forces Covenant, placing it in law [Armed Forces Bill].

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Measures will be introduced to provide National Insurance contribution relief for employers of veterans [National Insurance Contributions Bill]. Legislation will be introduced to counter hostile activity by foreign states [Counter-State Threats Bill, Telecommunications (Security) Bill].

My ministers will implement the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. The United Kingdom will host the G7 Summit and lead the global effort to secure a robust economic recovery from the pandemic.

My ministers will deepen trade ties in the Gulf, Africa and the Indo-Pacific. My government will continue to provide aid where it has the greatest impact on reducing poverty and alleviating human suffering.

My government will uphold human rights and democracy across the world. It will take forward a global effort to get 40 million girls across the world into school.

Members of the House of Commons,

Estimates for the public services will be laid before you.

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,

Other measures will be laid before you.

I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels.

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Queen’s Speech 2022 transcript: Full text of State Opening of Parliament address delivered by Prince Charles

The prince of wales stepped in for the state opening of parliament after the queen was forced to pull out due to mobility issues.

Prince Charles attended the State Opening of Parliament 2022 in the Queen’s place after she was forced to pull out due to “episodic mobility problems” .

The Prince of Wales delivered the Queen’s Speech instead, with Boris Johnson’s Government pledging to put forward a  bumper legislative programme  of 38Bills.

At 874 words, the address was the shortest speech at a State Opening of Parliament since 2013 and well below the average of 1,091 words of speeches during the Queen’s reign.

It took Prince Charles just eight minutes and 45 seconds to read it on Tuesday , a far cry from the 15 minutes it took the Queen to deliver 1999’s effort.

This marked the third time during the Queen’s reign that she did not deliver the speech in person, having missed the 1959 and 1963 events when pregnant with Prince Andrew and Prince Edward respectively.

Queen’s Speech 2022 full transcript

The full text of the 2022 Queen’s Speech delivered by Prince Charles is as follows:

“My lords and members of the House of Commons.

“My Government’s priority is to grow and strengthen the economy and help ease the cost of living for families.

“My Government will level up opportunity in all parts of the country and support more people into work.

“My ministers will continue to support the police to make the streets safer and fund the National Health Service to reduce the Covid backlogs.

“In these challenging times, my Government will play a leading role in defending democracy and freedom across the world, including continuing to support the people of Ukraine.

“My Government will drive economic growth to improve living standards and fund sustainable investment in public services.

“This will be underpinned by a responsible approach to the public finances, reducing debt while reforming and cutting taxes.

“My ministers will support the Bank of England to return inflation to its target.

“A Bill will be brought forward to drive local growth, empowering local leaders to regenerate their areas and ensuring everyone can share in the United Kingdom’s success.

“The planning system will be reformed to give residents more involvement in local development.

More on Queen's Speech

“My Government will improve transport across the United Kingdom, delivering safer, cleaner services and enabling more innovations. Legislation will be introduced to modernise rail services and improve reliability for passengers.

“My ministers will bring forward an Energy Bill to deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner, and more secure energy. This will build on the success of the COP26 Summit in Glasgow last year.

“Draft legislation to promote competition, strengthen consumer rights and protect households and businesses will be published.

“Measures will also be published to create new competition rules for digital markets and the largest digital firms.

“My Government will establish the UK Infrastructure Bank in legislation, with objectives to support economic growth and the delivery of net zero.

“Reforms to education will help every child fulfil their potential wherever they live, raising standards and improving the quality of schools and higher education.

“My ministers will publish draft legislation to reform the Mental Health Act.

“My Government will continue to seize the opportunities of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, to support economic growth. Regulations on businesses will be repealed and reformed.

“A Bill will enable law inherited from the European Union to be more easily amended.

“Public sector procurement will be simplified to provide new opportunities for small businesses.

“New legislation will strengthen the United Kingdom’s financial services industry, ensuring that it continues to act in the interest of all people and communities.

“The United Kingdom’s data protection regime will be reformed.

“My Government will continue to champion international trade, delivering jobs across the country and growing the economy.

“Legislation will be introduced to enable the implementation of the United Kingdom’s first new Free Trade Agreements since leaving the European Union.

“My Ministers will encourage agricultural and scientific innovation at home.

“Legislation will unlock the potential of new technologies to promote sustainable and efficient farming and food production.

“My Government will protect the integrity of the United Kingdom’s borders and ensure the safety of its people.

“My ministers will take action to prevent dangerous and illegal Channel crossings and tackle the criminal gangs who profit from facilitating them.

“Legislation will be introduced to ensure the police have the powers to make the streets safer.

“A Bill will be brought forward to further strengthen powers to tackle illicit finance, reduce economic crime and help businesses grow.

“Measures will be introduced to support the security services and help them protect the United Kingdom.

“My Government will lead the way in championing security around the world. It will continue to invest in our gallant Armed Forces.

“My ministers will work closely with international partners to maintain a united Nato and address the most pressing global security challenges.

“The continued success and integrity of the whole of the United Kingdom is of paramount importance to my Government, including the internal economic bonds between all of its parts.

“My Government will prioritise support for the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and its institutions, including through legislation to address the legacy of the past.

“My Government will ensure the constitution is defended. My ministers will restore the balance of power between the legislature and the courts by introducing a Bill of Rights.

“Legislation will prevent public bodies engaging in boycotts that undermine community cohesion.

“My Government will introduce legislation to improve the regulation of social housing to strengthen the rights of tenants and ensure better quality, safer homes.

“Legislation will also be introduced to ban conversion therapy.

“Proposals will be published to establish an independent regulator of English football.

“In this year of my Platinum Jubilee, I look forward to the celebrations taking place across the United Kingdom and throughout the Commonwealth, and to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this summer.

“Members of the House of Commons, estimates for the public services will be laid before you.

“My lords and members of the House of Commons, other measures will be laid before you.

“I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels.”

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Queen’s Speech 2022

Her Majesty’s most gracious speech to both Houses of Parliament.

My Lords and members of the House of Commons.

My Government’s priority is to grow and strengthen the economy and help ease the cost of living for families. My Government will level up opportunity in all parts of the country and support more people into work. My Ministers will continue to support the police to make the streets safer, and fund the National Health Service to reduce the COVID backlogs. In these challenging times, my Government will play a leading role in defending democracy and freedom across the world, including continuing to support the people of Ukraine.

My Government will drive economic growth to improve living standards and fund sustainable investment in public services. This will be underpinned by a responsible approach to the public finances, reducing debt while reforming and cutting taxes. My Ministers will support the Bank of England to return inflation to its target.

A Bill will be brought forward to drive local growth, empowering local leaders to regenerate their areas, and ensuring everyone can share in the United Kingdom’s success. The planning system will be reformed to give residents more involvement in local development [Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill].

My Government will improve transport across the United Kingdom, delivering safer, cleaner services and enabling more innovations. Legislation will be introduced to modernise rail services and improve reliability for passengers [Transport Bill].

My Ministers will bring forward an Energy Bill to deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner, and more secure energy. This will build on the success of the COP26 Summit in Glasgow last year [Energy Security Bill]. Draft legislation to promote competition, strengthen consumer rights and protect households and businesses will be published. Measures will also be published to create new competition rules for digital markets and the largest digital firms [Draft Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill].

My Government will establish the UK Infrastructure Bank in legislation, with objectives to support economic growth and the delivery of net zero [UK Infrastructure Bank Bill].

Reforms to education will help every child fulfil their potential wherever they live, raising standards and improving the quality of schools and higher education [Schools Bill, Higher Education Bill]. My Ministers will publish draft legislation to reform the Mental Health Act [Draft Mental Health Act Reform Bill].

My Government will continue to seize the opportunities of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, to support economic growth. Regulations on businesses will be repealed and reformed. A bill will enable law inherited from the European Union to be more easily amended [Brexit Freedoms Bill]. Public sector procurement will be simplified to provide new opportunities for small businesses [Procurement Bill].

New legislation will strengthen the United Kingdom’s financial services industry, ensuring that it continues to act in the interest of all people and communities [Financial Services and Markets Bill]. The United Kingdom’s data protection regime will be reformed [Data Reform Bill].

My Government will continue to champion international trade, delivering jobs across the country and growing the economy. Legislation will be introduced to enable the implementation of the United Kingdom’s first new Free Trade Agreements since leaving the European Union [Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill].

My Ministers will encourage agricultural and scientific innovation at home. Legislation will unlock the potential of new technologies to promote sustainable and efficient farming and food production [Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill].

My Government will protect the integrity of the United Kingdom’s borders and ensure the safety of its people. My Ministers will take action to prevent dangerous and illegal Channel crossings and tackle the criminal gangs who profit from facilitating them. Legislation will be introduced to ensure the police have the powers to make the streets safer [Public Order Bill].

A bill will be brought forward to further strengthen powers to tackle illicit finance, reduce economic crime and help businesses grow [Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill]. Measures will be introduced to support the security services and help them protect the United Kingdom [National Security Bill].

My Government will lead the way in championing security around the world. It will continue to invest in our gallant Armed Forces. My Ministers will work closely with international partners to maintain a united NATO and address the most pressing global security challenges.

The continued success and integrity of the whole of the United Kingdom is of paramount importance to my Government, including the internal economic bonds between all of its parts. My Government will prioritise support for the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and its institutions, including through legislation to address the legacy of the past [Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill].

My Government will ensure the constitution is defended. My Ministers will restore the balance of power between the legislature and the courts by introducing a Bill of Rights [Bill of Rights]. Legislation will prevent public bodies engaging in boycotts that undermine community cohesion [Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Bill].

My Government will introduce legislation to improve the regulation of social housing to strengthen the rights of tenants and ensure better quality, safer homes [Social Housing Regulation Bill]. Legislation will also be introduced to ban conversion therapy [Conversion Therapy Bill]. Proposals will be published to establish an independent regulator of English football.

In this year of my Platinum Jubilee, I look forward to the celebrations taking place across the United Kingdom and throughout the Commonwealth, and to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this summer.

MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

Estimates for the public services will be laid before you.

MY LORDS AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

Other measures will be laid before you.

I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels.

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The Queen’s Speech

Seventy years of writing from Her Majesty Elizabeth II

One of the  most significant roles of world leaders is to  rise to the podium and speak to their nations. We see it in the United States as the President, behind a joint session of Congress, delivers the annual State of the Union Address, when the Pope addresses Vatican City from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, or when a British Royal Monarch marks the op ening of Parliament. The late Queen Elizabeth II delivered this annual speech to outline policy and legislation but has also given countless others since she took the Throne in 195 2 . She was not just a monarch that recited what her ministers wrote for her,  but a leader that connected with her nation throughout decades of histo ry.

A Royal Christmas Broadcast

On each Christmas Day, millions of people from the United Kingdom and around the world turned to the television, radio, or internet to hear from Her Majesty. What made this writing different from the Queen’s normal tone was that she was allowed to talk openly. The message of her speech was not political, but hers alone.Every year, the Queen would touch on themes of family, peace, or servitude. Yet, how could she turn such repetitive writing into something new each time? She tailored her message. The Queen leveraged her brief time on Christmas day to highlight current issues and tie it backinto the beloved holiday. For example, she phased out usage of the word “empire” in the 1950s, touched on disabilities in 1980, addressed family scandals and destruction of Windsor Castle in 1992, memorialized Princess Diana in 1997, and offered reassurance amidst a global pandemic in 2020. The Queen turned a simple recording of well wishes into a platform to talk with the world.

“Twenty-five years agomy grandfather broadcast the first of these Christmas messages. Today is another landmark because television has made it possible for many of you to see me in your homes on Christmas Day. My own family often gather round to watch television as they are this moment, and that is how I imagine you now."

“For most of us this is a happy family day. But I am well aware that there are many of you who are alone, bereaved, or suffering. My heart goes out to you, and I pray that we, the more fortunate ones, can unite to lend a helping hand whenever it is needed, and not 'pass by on the other side.”

“Of course, for many, this time of year will be tinged with sadness: some mourning the loss of those dear to them, and others missing friends and family-members distanced for safety, when all they’d really want for Christmas is a simple hug or a squeeze of the hand. If you are among them, you are not alone, and let me assure you of my thoughts and prayers.”

• Knowing your audience when you write allows you to find your voice and make every piece of writing unique .
• Establishing a tone is crucial to connect with readers in the best way , evicting a feeling in them like joy, hope, sadness, and many more.

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The Queen’s Best Speeches: Learning from Royal Rhetoric

Krystal N. Craiker

The passing of Queen Elizabeth II is the end of a rich legacy. No matter your personal views, there’s no denying she left an impressive mark on the world during her historic reign.

In more than seventy years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II made many memorable speeches.

In this article, we’re taking a look at the queen’s best speeches and how she used rhetorical devices to make a lasting impact.

The Queen’s Coronation Day Speech, June 2, 1953

Opening of parliament, november 1, 1960, centenary of the entente cordiale, april 5, 2004, the queen’s pandemic speech, april 5, 2020.

Queen Elizabeth started out her reign with a memorable speech. Let’s check out the opening paragraph:

The ceremonies you have seen today are ancient, and some of their origins are veiled in the mists of the past. But their spirit and their meaning shine through the ages never, perhaps, more brightly than now. I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.

A strong opening for a strong queen. In the opening sentence, Her Majesty uses imagery, which is often overlooked as a rhetorical device by speechwriters. “Veiled in the mists of the past” captivates the audience with a vivid description.

Her Majesty contrasts this imagery in the next sentence: “shine through the ages… more brightly.” This contrasting picture shows her hope for a better future under her rule.

The third sentence uses parallelism , which is a common tool in great speeches. The lyrical flow of parallel syntax provides emphasis.

Queen Elizabeth says she has “pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine.” The parallelism emphasizes her point that the Queen’s relationship with the Commonwealth is not one-sided: she serves the people as much as they serve her.

While the opening of Parliament might not sound like the most exciting event to most people, Her Majesty turned a dry list of achievements and goals into something great. Here’s an excerpt of her speech.

My Government will endeavour to improve the protection of the community against crime. The strength, efficiency and well-being of the police will be their continuing concern; and they will seek to make more effective the various methods of penal treatment… Legislation will be introduced to provide for a levy on horse-racing and, in England and Wales, to check abuses by registered clubs and to reform the licensing laws. Authority will be sought for an increase in the number of judges in the Supreme Court. My Government will persevere with measures to promote economic growth in the Highlands and Islands and to develop modern standards of living there; and they will put forward legislation to amend the Crofters (Scotland) Act. A Bill will be introduced to extend the investment powers of trustees. Legislation will be laid before you to amend the Weights and Measures Acts. Legislation is being prepared to provide financial assistance towards the construction of a new Atlantic liner to replace the Queen Mary. My Government will submit to you proposals for reforming the structure and functions of the British Transport Commission…

Throughout the entire speech, Queen Elizabeth uses anaphora, which is the repetition of sentence beginnings. She uses the phrases “My government will” and “Legislation will be” many times.

Why is this effective? While anaphora is generally used for emphasis, it serves a different purpose here. It creates a rhythm to a speech that is, essentially, a long list. This makes it more engaging and demonstrates her determination to work as a team with Parliament.

In 2004, Queen Elizabeth visited France to celebrate a century of good relations, after nearly a millennium of conflict and adversarial association. Let’s look at part of this speech:

But since 1815 our two nations have not been to war. On the contrary, we have stood together, resolute in defence of liberty and democracy, notably through the terrible global conflicts of the 20th century. We are both reminded that neither of our two great nations, nor Europe, nor the wider western alliance, can afford the luxury of short-term division or discord, in the face of threats to our security and prosperity that now challenge us all. Of course, we will never agree on everything. Life would be dull indeed, not least for the rest of the world, if we did not allow ourselves a little space to live up to our national caricatures—British pragmatism and French elan; French conceptualism and British humour; British rain and French sun; I think we should enjoy the complementarity of it all.

Her Majesty had a sense of humor, and she used this humor in her address.

To break up her discussion of their serious past and uncertain future, she jokes about their differences. She notes that life would be dull, especially for everyone else in the world who makes fun of the French and the British. She even discusses their different weather.

She uses parallelism and repetition to illustrate their differences while adding some cheer. It was a momentous occasion, and cause for celebration, which makes the Queen’s humor even more powerful.

It was hard to choose an excerpt from Queen Elizabeth’s address at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic because the entire speech was powerful and inspiring.

Below is one of many brilliant excerpts. This one uses an interesting rhetorical device.

I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country. The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future… It reminds me of the very first broadcast I made, in 1940, helped by my sister. We, as children, spoke from here at Windsor to children who had been evacuated from their homes and sent away for their own safety. Today, once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones… We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.

Queen Elizabeth talks about pride, and she emphasizes this point using alliteration . The second paragraph of this excerpt has multiple examples of alliteration, such as “fellow-feeling” and “characterise this country.”

She continues into the next sentence by accentuating the /p/ sound of pride with “part,” “past,” and “present.” She leaves no doubt that she is proud of her people, and they should be proud of themselves.

Interestingly, she also uses allusion to her very first broadcast speech. She addressed the children of Britain, and their families, in a time of fear and uncertainty amid the bombings of World War II.

Now that we know Her Majesty’s remaining time was short, this allusion is even more powerful. It’s a full-circle moment of her legacy, a symbol of hope for millions of people through dark times.

The Queen and her speeches will be missed. As writers, we look forward to seeing a new era of royal rhetoric.

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Krystal N. Craiker is the Writing Pirate, an indie romance author and blog manager at ProWritingAid. She sails the seven internet seas, breaking tropes and bending genres. She has a background in anthropology and education, which brings fresh perspectives to her romance novels. When she’s not daydreaming about her next book or article, you can find her cooking gourmet gluten-free cuisine, laughing at memes, and playing board games. Krystal lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, child, and basset hound.

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Nicole Kobie

We asked an AI to write the Queen’s Christmas speech

Every year, Queen Elizabeth delivers what’s known as the Christmas Broadcast, looking back on the year that was, lamenting losses, and celebrating achievements, before wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.

But many of us have struggled to find the words to discuss the horrors of this year – starting emails with “hope you’re keeping well?" or repeatedly pasting a gif of a dumpster fire into group chats. While the Queen has decades of experience discussing tough topics – and speech writers – even she may need a little inspiration, so WIRED has turned to three sets of experts to generate a Christmas Broadcast speech using artificial intelligence. Where applicable, the systems have been trained on a data set of 44,984 words from every Christmas message back to her very first in 1952, as well as 18,426 words from ten WIRED stories about Covid-19.

Natural language generation is everyday to us — Gmail uses it to suggest responses, it powers smartphone autocorrect and autocomplete — but some systems are better than others. And the one that kept coming up in discussions with our teams of experts as a leading example was OpenAI’s GPT-3. The Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, to give its full name, was trained on hundreds of billions of words scraped from the internet and uses deep learning to write sentences that read as though human crafted, though they may have little meaning or not be factually accurate.

Understanding the limitations of language generation is important. In September, OpenAI worked on a story with The Guardian entitled “ A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human? " The newspaper even gave GPT-3 the byline. However, an editor’s note at the bottom revealed the final column was the result of Guardian editors picking and choosing the lines they liked best, arranging them into a sensible order. “Overall, it took less time to edit than many human op-eds," the note concluded.

OpenAI wasn’t willing to work with WIRED on this story, with a spokesperson saying: “GPT-3 was trained pre-Covid, and we feel it doesn’t make sense to have it generate a speech about the past year since it doesn’t have all the information about it.”

But there are other ways. Matthew Kershaw, founder of Woolf Consulting, uses a website called PhilosopherAI to play with GPT-3. For $3, anyone can buy a pack of ten queries or prompts. Enter a prompt or question into the box, and GPT-3 will spit out answers or follow-up sentences on a similar topic or theme.

Amanda Hoover

Andy Greenberg

Mark Andrews

This system is pre-trained on internet language, but isn’t trained on the data set from the Queen’s previous broadcasts and isn’t yet aware of Covid-19. So to keep it on topic, Kershaw chose a few themes culled from the previous speeches that would work in response to the pandemic: it’s been a difficult year, we’ve shown fortitude and resilience, we need to come together as a country, and then concluding with Christmas wishes.

Kershaw entered five dozen prompts on those themes into the system, PhilosopherAI’s version of GPT-3 responded with between three to eight paragraphs for each. From that, Kershaw selected bits and pieces to assemble into a speech, with the bulk coming from a single prompt about coming together as a nation. It wasn’t an efficient process. “I could have written a great speech in less time than it took me to do all that faffing around and copying and pasting bullshit,” he says, but adds that there were nuggets of inspiration that could have been a good starting point for the Queen’s real speech writer.

With a bit of effort, and plenty of copying and pasting, this is what he and GPT-3 came up with:

It’s been a tricky few months.

We have some serious problems that need to be solved. The only way to solve these problems is by coming together as a whole.

For us to be free and happy, we need to care about the whole country more than its individual parts. We need to work with each other so that everyone can flourish and live in peace. We must take care of all of our citizens, no matter their race, gender or religion. No one should be left out in the cold and need help from others.

We should always strive to be better. We must never give up on its quest for a brighter future.

When all this is done, it will be a country that can truly say that everyone who lives in it would rather die than let harm come to another person.

We will feel more united in our past accomplishments, as well as the hard work and dedication we have put into making this country what it is today.

It’s not bad — indeed, the syntax is near perfect. But Kershaw notes that some of the responses weren’t suitable for a festive broadcast. “Some of the things it said were really off,” he admits. To one prompt about how to bring people together, the system responded: “Why would you want to bring people together? In fact, people should all die.”

We don’t expect Her Majesty would ever say such a thing. “An AI is not yet ready to be the Queen — or even the Queen’s speech writer,” Kershaw adds.

For another take, WIRED turned to Kerry Harrison of marketing consultancy Tiny Giant , which has previously used AI generated text for projects such as inventing cocktails, cupcakes and talks for the Cheltenham Science Festival. Her team’s result had imperfect syntax but better suited content, possibly as it could be trained on the provided datasets – so it “knew” about Covid-19 and the Queen’s style of speech.

Harrison used a language generation system pulled together from Google’s publicly available TensorFlow and Colab libraries. It’s a recurrent neural network, taking in the datasets and making predictions about what word should come next, she explains.

The level of randomness in the predictions can be controlled via a “temperature” setting. “1.0 is pretty much nonsense,” she says. “But if you go all the way down to 0.1, it just gives you what you’ve put in, without any risks in terms of what might come next.” For this, the best results came between 0.3 and 0.5, Harrison adds.

As with the first example, the final Christmas speech was pieced together from bits and pieces spit out by the AI and curated by Harrison; she notes that it’s easier for AI to write small snippets of text than to structure longer pieces. “We added in a few linking phrases and constructed a rough narrative,” she says. “But the words you see are as true to the generated output as possible.”

This is the result:

In this last year we have been in the way of sorrows. There is a sense of sympathy to the world. One that all of you will never forget.

Our country has been shut down to below. We have been given social distancing, rules and guidelines. We have had to avoid pubs and restaurants and theatres, restaurants and theatres, bars, shopping. The British people are not to be the same for these challenges.

It is not always easy to have a sense of good times. I am reminded of the library at Windsor. In there, my father George VI, developed a theme: that human existence is right.

Now we are in the Christmas spirit. The familiar pattern of Christmas and the Norfolk countryside makes new lives of our families. It is a time for reunions, celebration – and for many people, I believe it is a time to reflect on the year.

All over the world we have seen the importance of family, the wider community and strangers who we are able to learn from. We have seen an opportunity to show the world our truth, this sense of belonging. I have been inspired by the courage of hope.

Now is a time for good news. A new knowledge gained by a process of us. With modern vaccine technology, we have had the opportunity to show a special kind of courage that we can all achieve. We are able to help our neighbours, draw strength from our own homes and heal old.

We have seen pictures of courage that we will be able to show the people of our children. I am sure that this is a new dawn. It is a wonderful tribute to the future.

Today, as I am speaking to you all, I pray that the Christmas message of peace and goodwill is a better understanding between nations. I believe that there is wide comradeship, love and very real hope.

In the words of our poet laureate: Coventry is right.

I wish you all a very happy Christmas and a happy Christmas.

Even with human curation and editing, that speech is a bit odd in places. Harrison shared the output with Kershaw, who suggested it sounded as though it had been badly translated from another language – and that sparked an idea. The above text was pasted into Google Translate and translated into Spanish and then translated back into English. That helped smooth some of the rougher edges.

Post translation, the new intro begins with more drama: “In this last year we have been on the path of pain.”

In another example, odd phrasing is normalised thanks to the translation AI. “The British people are not to be the same for these challenges,” becomes a bit smoother: “The British people will not be the same for these challenges.”

That said, we still don’t know what Coventry was right about, and it’s intriguing the Tiny Giant system picked up on that city, as it was mentioned just once in the original data set of actual speeches delivered by the Queen on Christmas day and not at all in the WIRED selection of Covid-themed articles.

Next, WIRED turned to Melissa Terras, professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh and a Turing Institute fellow, and David Beavan, a senior research software engineer at the Turing Institute. As with the text generated by Kershaw and Harrison, there was plenty of human editing involved with the speech their system created. But that wasn’t where the hard work started.

Before the technology could even be chosen, Beavan had to bring the project before the Turing Institute’s ethics board, which wanted to know what mitigations would be put in place to avoid negative outcomes, such as making it appear the Queen had said negative words or to put fake news about Covid-19 into her speech. “The whole process to make sure that we’re doing this responsibly, and the ethical approval, was so important,” says Beavan. “It’s really important that as researchers we have in our institutions these checks and balances and we’re held accountable.”

Once the ethics board was convinced of the care and caution Beavan would take – including shutting down the system after this story was finished so it couldn’t be irresponsibly used by others – he pulled together the technology to generate the text, turning to GPT-2 as he wasn’t given access to GPT-3 for the aforementioned reasons.

To train the system, he had to combine the two datasets, one of the Queen’s previous broadcasts and the second of WIRED Covid-19 stories, into a single document to ensure both were equally considered. “You give it the beginning of a sentence and the idea is it guesses the next word,” he says. After examining the results, the temperature is dialled up or down.

The system churned out thousands of words, which were then passed to Terras to edit down. She started by taking out anything negative or controversial – “the computer put together some dark stuff,” Terras says, especially around race, the commonwealth and war – and then selected relevant passages, keeping the sentences whole but altering order and placement. Some AI systems can analyse documents for structure, but not this one, so a helping hand was required. “I took a box of tiles and put them in a mosaic,” she explains. “There’s a lot of human editing.”

Here’s what the combination of what they dubbed the ‘Windsor-o-tron’ and Terras’ editing skills came up with:

Christmas is a time for reflection on the past and making new friends. On the first day of the year, however, things began to look a bit more grim. I remember meeting Joseph and Mary at the Inn in Sandringham. We were both looking forward to the future and looking forward to our visit to Oxford this autumn. I shall never forget the scene in Windsor, where the Covid-19 outbreak was reignited. In the first lockdown, all tourists were restored to normal, adults were ordered to stay at home and children under five were allowed to stay at home.

I have spent the last couple of weeks listening to some of your radio and television interviews, which has touched me deeply. I have thought to myself whether it is time to send you my best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. The NHS has faced a real and growing challenge in the years ahead. It’s been a difficult few months for many people living alone. But with so much to build on and many exciting opportunities to be found in the nature of our relationship, this year I think it is safe to say that we are all looking forward to a new year.

We are also living in a time of social distancing: the less we live together the more distanced we become. I am thinking of those now living with their parents or caring for them at home. These people are now their families. That motherly instinct has helped to shape my own views of the world, thoughts on life and my own beliefs. I remember the first time I was asked by a kindly visitor, a man of few words, what year was Jamaica.

The world has to face its challenges and confront its problems with courage, patience and fortitude. A vaccine for Covid-19 hinges on the delivery of a drug, so that new antibodies can be triggered. But the real power lies in the invisible hand that draws the world in. When invisible hands come to the task, it’s often the invisible workers at the machinery who are making that change. It is through their example and willingness to show the world that they deserve our respect that we can make a real difference.

One of the things that has remained constant throughout the Commonwealth, I believe, is the effort to reconcile the differences between nations and between countries. That spirit of brotherhood which has survived the most serious challenge of the present century can be best expressed in the British Commonwealth and the Commonwealth international formula. Every year I look forward to opening the letters, parcels and telegrams that come to me from the Commonwealth. I can think of no better time than now to say a big thank you to all the people who have given so much to this country and all around the Commonwealth. Every one of them has given so much to me.

This year I’ve spent a great deal of time and effort in various fashions and colours, some of which are familiar to many of you. Naturally I would like to draw attention to the fact that my family and myself have enjoyed a very happy and prosperous past year. We are fortunate to have a home and some children.

Like many other families, we gathered to watch the bubbling fountains of humanity rise above the evil. In the meantime, members of my own family are celebrating Christmas with their families and we shall see further developments as I set out to see which side of the Atlantic the peace will be in the coming year.

In January 2021, after we’ve all lined up patiently for our jabs and the threat of the virus has receded, we may finally start to count the damage the novel coronavirus has wrought on our lives. The Prince of Wales also saw first hand the remarkable resilience of the human spirit. Yes, there are many of you unhappy families, but there are also millions of ordinary people who are helping keep our country and our Commonwealth together. They are making a real contribution to our society. There may be small signs of recovery, but in the meantime, we must all keep an eye out for signs of a slowing or complete return to the days when King James was a political and economically powerful man.

The real value of Christmas lies in the message and the spirit that it brings. Christmas is a very human offering, and it speaks to the needs of all people. So, as it passes through our thoughts are diverted to other planets, and to the struggles beyond our control.

The Christmas story reminds us that it is not only about one man, but about many. We have a message for you all: hope, peace, brotherhood and a happy Christmas. Whether you are talking to a friend, or a relative, or a stranger, or a visitor from another world, the message of Christmas is ever more relevant than ever. I would like to see a message of encouragement, as I go about my business in the rain.

Our lives are shaped by our past, and as we live out our future together we should know each other best. It is difficult for us to know far into the future as our families gather round us, but it is better that we have some sense than that we have any sense at all. I wish you all, together with your children and grandchildren, a blessed Christmas.

There are some bonkers statements in the speech, but also sentences that are entirely plausible. “Overall, I think that generative AI is best used alongside a human,” says Terras. “I would never come up with some of those lines, like ‘what time was Jamaica’ – that’s really funny – or the bit about ‘going about my business in the rain’.”

Other unprintable bits weren’t as funny, notably comments about the Royal family, Covid-19, and race and the empire – with phrases generated that could never be expected to come from the Queen’s mouth. Though the system was trained on the Queen’s own words, it was pre-trained on the internet. Tens of thousands of words came from her previous Christmas broadcasts, but that’s far outweighed by the hundreds of billions GPT has analysed online. “You need about two million words for a decent basic model,” Terras says.

And that means some of the words spit out by GPT-2 weren’t anything you’d expect from the Queen, but perfectly at home online. “It mimics real life – and it’s limited by what it sees,” adds Terras. “It reinforces and condenses some of the discussions about race online – and a lot of the internet is very racist.”

As the builders of such systems, we could fix that by choosing better data sources and by ensuring a human is always in the loop. “A dark corner of the internet got dug up, and once the model got in there, it reinforced itself,” adds Beavan. “It couldn’t get out of some of the avenues it found itself stuck in.”

Right now, the systems can put one word after another, but they don’t understand what they’re saying. They’re not intelligent, they have no context and no imagination. But that could change, says Terras – it’s not as though ideas about racial discrimination, historical language shifts, or power dynamics in language are new, after all. “But I don’t think we’ve really begun to train our computational systems in the philosophy of language,” she says. “And that’s why these conversations between computer science folks and humanities people are so important.”

In the meantime, we need to be careful about how such AI is used to generate articles, speeches, or any other text, read by the Queen or not – and make sure a human is accountable and responsible. “We need to rein in some of its ability to just go off on one. It’s like the drunk uncle at a party you just can’t shut up, repeating all the stuff he read on Facebook groups,” she says. “That’s what AI is right now.”

This article was originally published by WIRED UK

Kathy Gilsinan

Morgan Meaker

Lauren Goode

Louise Matsakis

Aarian Marshall

Matt Burgess

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