Liberal Democrat acting leader Vince Cable said the Queen's speech demonstrated "a grand coalition of ideas between the Tories and Labour".

Responding to the Queen's speech in the Commons on Tuesday, Cable said the prime minister had written the speech in "the bluest ink".

He described the legislative agenda as having "little new; no ideas; little vision".

The prime minister had been waiting for more than decade for the speech, he said, and now "cuts rather a sad figure".

"There are wide areas of policy on which Labour and the Conservatives now have exactly the same position," he went on.

"They are advocating the same tax policies with the same indifference to widening inequality, the same love affair with the discredited council tax, they're both now bidding for the anti-immigrant vote, they're both now trying to prove how tough they are on crime by packing prisons with petty criminals, the mentally ill and people with addiction problems.

"They have both signed up to an energy policy which is centralised and depends on new nuclear power, they're both willing to sacrifice the environment for new airport development, they're both willing to load onto highly indebted students tuition fees and top-up fees."

Cable, acting leader of the Lib Dems until a replacement for Sir Menzies Campbell is elected in December, went on to say both main parties shared an "obsequious" relationship with the Bush administration in the US.

Both signed up to a "fundamentally unethical, cynical foreign policy" which led to them meeting last week with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Cable described the state banquet, which he himself chose not to attend, as "that little jamboree celebrating three decades of corrupt arms dealing with one of the most unsavoury regimes in the world".