LONDON • Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who is suffering from a persistent back injury, may not be fit enough to carry out the showpiece state opening of parliament, newspapers said yesterday.The head of state has missed a handful of recent engagements due to her bad back and courtiers are drawing up emergency plans in case she is unable to make the lavish ceremony on November 15, reports said.

The 80-year-old monarch is renowned for her stamina and unwavering sense of duty but has been ordered to reduce her busy schedule to help her back recover from the strain sustained a few months ago.

The state opening of parliament begins with a horse-drawn procession to Palace of Westminster, where the monarch sets out the government’s legislative programme from the throne in a speech written by the prime minister’s office.

As well as state robes, the sovereign has to wear the cumbersome Imperial State Crown, which contains 2,868 diamonds and weighs two pounds (910 grammes). The collar of the Order of the Garter is just as heavy.

On the throne since 1952, Queen Elizabeth has only ever missed the traditional key constitutional event twice in her reign, due to pregnancies. Newspapers speculated that the strain of the two hours of pageantry may be too much for the queen’s bad back. “Her Majesty’s condition is very uncomfortable,” a member of the royal household told The Sun.

“She takes the state opening of parliament extremely seriously but it would be quite an ordeal with a painful back.”

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail said that Queen Elizabeth could request that her heir and eldest son, Prince Charles, step in for her. But the tabloid said she would not wish to see his second wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, participating in such an occasion.

“If anything is likely to heal Her Majesty’s painful back, it is the thought of Camilla parading along the carpeted corridors of the House of Lords,” it quoted an unnamed Buckingham Palace aide as saying.