Who will succeed Truss and will the state pension survive?

The woman I had put my trust in as the next Prime Minister was making a right old mess, leaving the country in uproar. Well almost.

At this time of year I’m thinking of Halloween and all those preparations needed to make the event go with a bang. I shouldn’t have to worry about the possibility of an election here days before Christmas or start worrying about the Koh-i-Noor – that diamond in the crown which will be de-moth-balled in time for our next Coronation which isn’t that long away. In fact there are lots of things to keep me awake at night.

I should start with the Triple Lock under which the state pension rises by the highest of inflation. Ms Truss clearly wanted it binned but hadn’t the nerve to say so. So I imagine there were lots of pensioners shouting at the TV when it seemed likely we oldies were going to be stuck with a rise of less than 3pc when inflation was rapidly rising to just over 10pc. She wouldn’t dare scrap the Triple Lock? Clearly she had a mind to but happily the roof fell in on her and she had to do an about turn.

"It’s not the same world anymore’’ declared one television journalist shocked at the unexpected news.

That pre-Christmas election which just might happen here if Stormont is not restored, left me in despair. Who wants an election less than two weeks before Christmas? Surely this Protocol nonsense could be sorted before then? Hasn’t former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson who was in the province earlier this week declared he `understood the position of unionists who oppose it’.

His advice was for the various parties to find a `landing zone’ of compromise on the trading deal. It’s not the only thing his Lordship should have been aware of last week. I wonder if he had heard about the alleged `up the Ra’ chant used by Republic of Ireland female players after their success against Scotland on the football field last week?

He should come here more often to observe and learn how much goading goes on here even now extending to an Irish female football team none of whom I suspect was born when the Troubles were endemic. That `Up the Ra’ chant shows why we should avoid New Ireland, declared my colleague and Editor Ben Lowry in this newspaper last Saturday.

In the wider scale of things I go back to the up-coming Coronation and that famous controversial diamond the Koh-i-Noor. Author and historian Dr Zareer Masani writing in the Daily Telegraph recently said his childhood was spent in post-colonial Bombay. He writes `we were taught at school that it was a very generous gift from the child Maharaja of Punjab to Queen Victoria and we never questioned its proud presence in the Queen Consort’s crown’’. Children in India are taught a very different take of the diamond ``as evidence of the alleged loot that the Raj took from India’’ he wrote.

He explains that the boy prince who handed over the diamond had ‘no say in the matter so whom can we say, a century and a half later, it legitimately belongs to?’ A fair question.

I’m old enough to have remembered the Coronation of our Queen Elizabeth in 1952 and I can well imagine that Camilla may be dreading the whole spectacle. Still, she likes horses so she may feel at home nevertheless with the fillies that will perform on the day.

There are those who think the whole Coronation thing a huge waste of money. Yet Royal history is fascinating. For example did our late Queen, supported by the Church of England, oppose an investigation into who killed the young Princes in the Tower back in 1483 believing it might `set a precedent for testing historical theories that would lead to multiple royal dis-interments?’ Those two little doomed Princes back in 1483 were the same ages my two grandchildren are now. Might Prince Charles, himself a father, finally agree to solve the mystery when he is King?