‘Going goat’ holds up start of U.K. parliament

The U.K. parliament will be opening later than expected, and one of the culprits for the delay appears to be the British practice of printing official documents on goatskin.

A government source told The Daily Telegraph there was “nothing sinister” about the delay.

Any new session of parliament must be opened with a speech from the British monarch laying out the government’s agenda. With the ink on Queen Elizabeth’s goatskin speech taking up to three days to dry, however, a draft will not be ready in time for the anticipated June 19 opening of parliament.

Confusingly, goatskin does not contain any goat. Rather, it is a high-quality archival paper meant to mimic the properties of vellum — parchment made from animal skin.

It was only a few years ago that the U.K. parliament was still printing its official documents on vellum. However, goatskin was brought in to replace the animal skin as a cost-saving measure.

The Conservatives already had a goatskin speech prepared in the event they obtained a majority government.

However, in the postelection chaos of a hung parliament, Prime Minister Theresa May is needing to cobble together a new speech for the Queen that is guaranteed to win over the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, whose 10 MPs now hold the balance of power.

The three-day delay needed to prepare the Queen’s speaking notes has long been an annoyance for British parliamentarians. Reportedly, the phrase “going goat” is still used to refer to a draft that is ready for submission to the Queen.

The practice of printing documents on vellum in the 21st century isn’t quite as batty as it sounds.

Vellum is prized for its durability, and many historical documents have survived to the present day in large part because they were written on animal skin.

Several 800-year-old copies of the Magna Carta and the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls remain remarkably intact, while any paper copies would have long ago crumbled to dust.

Goatskin parchment, meanwhile, is only guaranteed to last for 500 years, a troublingly short time period given the lengthy span of British history.

Five centuries would not be long enough to preserve any mention of the dispatch of navigator John Cabot to North America, where he discovered Newfoundland.

Inconveniently printed speeches are just one strange tradition among many in a ceremony that is laden with rituals. On the morning that Queen Elizabeth will give her speech, her personal bodyguard will first perform a ceremonial inspection of the cellars of Parliament — a nod to the foiled 1605 plot to blow up the chamber with gunpowder.