IT HAS been reported that the coronation, which it might be remembered, has no formal purpose, cost £250 million.

Although King Charles is thought to have a personal wealth of £1.8 billion he did not contribute. Rather, with the cost-of-living crisis in mind surely, it was public money that was spent.

In return, there was a ceremony of largely made-up or reinvented traditions which at times looked more like a Monty Python sketch.

Total TV viewing across all platforms was less than 20 million. The Queen’s funeral and jubilee in 2022 both got more viewers, as did her 1953 coronation.

Of course, 20 million is still a substantial number, although the British population is around 67 million, meaning the majority were for one reason or another otherwise engaged.

The crowds in London, despite the traditional coronation rain, appeared substantial — although I haven’t seen a figure. Certainly, the day passed off without incident, except of course some bungling authoritarians in the police managed to arrest some anti-monarchy protesters for no particular reason.

The police have spent the days since in a “sorry, not sorry” routine — which might serve to remind the various politicians who have stated that the Metropolitan Police are not fit for purpose to do something about it.

Was the coronation good for business? It will take a while to get reports on hospitality trading, but even on the Bank Holiday Monday shops were reducing significant amounts of unsold coronation items.

The weathervane of such matters, the Wetherspoons pub chain, reported that Saturday trading was quieter than usual.

The coronation can be seen as a set of supposedly ancient rituals and traditions designed to underwrite the legitimacy of the current state — another Tory culture war.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was central to this. He was behind the idea of King Charles being anointed with a special oil behind a screen specially constructed for the purpose.

Unfortunately for the Tories, just a few days later, Welby was to be found in the House of Lords arguing against the government’s Immigration Bill broadly on the grounds that it was not based on Christian principles.

This led to a series of Tory ministers to attack Welby and claim that it was not the job of an archbishop to speak out on moral issues. They seem to have forgotten that the Tories are the party of church and king. Indeed the mother of the magistrate who sent the yeomanry in at Peterloo, William Hulton, even had a horse named Church and King.

A few days later, in what can only be seen as a “godspeed” moment, it was revealed that Welby had been fined for speeding. Given that the offence took place in the autumn, an operation to undermine his moral probity just a few days after the coronation appeared to be at hand.

Meanwhile, the arrest of protesters issue has also become more problematic. One of those arrested was Alice Thompson, who was handcuffed and held for 13 hours because she happened to be in the vicinity of Just Stop Oil protesters.

She was however not a protester but someone described as a “royal superfan.”

The claim by the head of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley that policing and arrests on the day of the coronation were “intelligence-led” can be seen for the lie that it was.

In short, since the market judges everything in society, the coronation was a rather underwhelming performance.

If the pomp and circumstance of a coronation was meant to distract from a cost-of-living crisis, it failed.