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Who was the star of the coronation?

Apart that is, from their magistrates, the king and the queen.

The answer most watching would surely agree is the bearer of the sword of state, all eight

pounds of it, held aloft for a muscle straining 51 minutes.

By my guests on political thinking, a conversation with rather than an interrogation of someone who

shapes our political thinking.

It was a feat performed by the first woman to do the job at a coronation, penny-mordant

and it won the admiration of people who were normally her political foes.

She did it as Lord, President of the Council, a day job is leader of the House of Commons

and that performance led to the bookies cutting the odds on her becoming the next leader

of the Conservative Party.

Worth remembering, she came mighty close to getting the job and becoming our Prime Minister

last summer after Boris Johnson was forced out of number 10.

Penny Morden, welcome to political thinking.

Hi.

You had to have your entire focus on a few square feet inside the Abbey.

And did you first realise that you had become one of the stars of the show?

Well, I was separated from social media for quite some time, a little bit of time afterwards

because I didn't have my phone with me and so on.

But I was just very glad to get through it and that it all went according to plan.

You rehearse and rehearse, you know, all things that can go wrong and I also wanted

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