George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016, revealed on his podcast Political Currency on 29 May 2025 that Mark Carney had first asked His Majesty the King to open the 45^th Parliament as King of Canada back on 17 March 2025. Osborne claimed that Carney had told him about all this directly during the same visit to London in mid-March 2025, shortly after his appointment as prime minister but before the dissolution of parliament for a general election. Osborne said in full:

George Osborne: “So when Mark Carney came to Britain, a couple of days after he was appointed as Prime Minister [on 14 March], before he then won his election [on 28 April], I got a chance to see him [Carney], and he had been to see the King Charles. And he [Carney] told me that King Charles had agreed there and then to do the State Opening in person, which of course, as you say, is an incredibly rare event, even though he is King of Canada and his mother was Queen of Canada. And Mark was really thrilled that he agreed and I think saw in a way that I couldn’t – because I’m not steeped in politics and society in the way that he is – he could see the significance of it.

This came from the episode entitled “Labour’s Looming Spending Review Chaos” from 6:37 to 7:17.

I find this example very interesting and will feed into my study of the Caretaker Convention in 2025 during the transfer of power between Trudeau and Carney in March and the general election in April. The Prime Minister presumably first made this request when the King invited him for an audience at Buckingham Palace on 17 March 2025 and gave a press conference later that day in London – familiar terrain to the former Governor of the Bank of England.[1] This invitation makes good on the press released issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on 15 March 2025, just before Carney’s trip to Paris and London, that he would “strengthen ties with France and the United Kingdom and reaffirm Canada’s sovereignty.”[2]

Similar Posts: 

• The Upcoming Transfer of Power Between Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney (March 2025)

Notes

[1] CPAC, “Prime Minister Mark Carney Holds a Press Conference in London, U.K. – March 17, 2025,” 17 March 2025; Peter Zimonjic and Darren Major, “Carney Says Canada Can Stand Up for Its Own Sovereignty as European Trip Wraps Up,” CBC News, 17 March 2025.

[2] Prime Minister of Canada, “Prime Minister Carney to Strengthen Ties with France and the United Kingdom and Reaffirm Canada’s Sovereignty,” 15 March 2025.