LONDON — Britain's Conservative government made sweeping promises to cut crime, improve health care and revive the pandemic-scarred economy as it laid out its plans for the next year in a tradition-steeped ceremony in Parliament — but without Queen Elizabeth II, who was absent for the first time in six decades.
The 96-year-old monarch pulled out of reading the Queen's Speech at the ceremonial State Opening of Parliament because of what Buckingham Palace calls "episodic mobility issues." Her son and heir, Prince Charles, stood in, rattling through a short speech laying out 38 bills the government plans to pass.
