‘Campaign to save triple lock closes in on victory’

But hark: the ominous budget may have a silver lining. It appears PM Rishi Sunak is set to bow to the demands of Daily Express readers and protect the triple lock. Some 325,000 of you spoke up and backed our crusade – with the Silver Voices group – to keep the triple lock, and it seems your pleas have been heard.If it turns out as hoped, it would be both magnanimous and wise. Faced with a punishing winter of spiralling energy and food prices, pensioners – among our most vulnerable citizens – sorely need a boost. It would also be the moral thing to do.Not only has Mr Sunak said that pensioners are at the ‘forefront of my mind’, he has promised to stick to his party’s manifesto of 2019 which stated: ‘We will keep the triple lock, the winter fuel payment, the older person’s bus pass and other pensioner benefits, ensuring that older people have the security and dignity they deserve.’The triple lock’s suspension after Covid was meant to be temporary, and ensuring the mechanism’s survival would be a great Christmas gift to 12.5 million pensioners.While plans for Thursday remain shrouded, the portents are good.Fingers crossed. While plans for Thursday remain shrouded, the portents are good (Image: Getty)A few years ago, it was treated as a side-show of scant importance.Now, like all unsolved problems, small boat migration has blown up into a crisis. So we should applaud Rishi Sunak for trying to get to grips with it within the first 100 days of his premiership, as promised.Yesterday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman signed a £63million deal with France to significantly increase security, build a relationship between our border forces and to stop more migrants from leaving.Yes, cross-border measures have been tried before and the efficacy of the new arrangement remains to be seen.But Mr Sunak has given the issue the priority it deserves, raising it at his first meeting with President Macron, and positioning small boats as part of a Europe-wide problem.As Ms Braverman said, there is ‘no silver bullet’. But the Government’s move to cross-border cooperation bodes well.With the cost-of-living crisis lurching on, the prospect of a dear Christmas has become a bit depressing.So we salute supermarket chain Morrisons, which is to slash the price of seasonal favourites from cranberry sauce to mince pies, in a bid to bring festive cheer back to this forbidding season.The only downside? Cheap sprouts are part of the deal.