It’s been another quiet year in British affairs of state- with just a change of monarch and three Prime Ministers sitting in No 10 in the last 12 months.

And Swindon’s MPs -Justin Tomlinson in North Swindon and Sir Robert Buckland in South Swindon - have certainly played their part during an interesting time in Westminster.

The year started with Sir Robert on the backbenches not long having been fired from his cabinet post of Justice Secretary by then PM Boris Johnson.

Mr Tomlinson was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative party, having been given the job in the same reshuffle which saw Sir Robert lose his cabinet role.

All was reasonably quiet for the first half of the year, but as the controversies and scandals surrounding Mr Johnson increased, Sir Robert joined with dozens of ministers and backbench MPs in calling for him to step down.

Mr Tomlinson was notable for not doing that, saying he had been 'Team Boris' all along.

Then in early July Mr Johnson said he would step down, but it would be in September – and things started getting unusual.

With most of his ministers having said they couldn’t serve under him, Mr Johnson needed a cabinet and he gave Sir Robert the job of Secretary of State for Wales.

The South Swindon MP accepted saying it was important that the business of government continued.

As the contest to be the next PM heated up Mr Tomlinson resigned his party job in order to be on the campaign team of Kemi Badenoch.

Sir Robert threw his weight behind the former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak. But he later changed his support to Liz Truss, who duly won the Conservative party internal election and became Prime Minister.

Then the Queen died, and as Secretary of State for Wales Sir Robert took part in the proclamation of the new King in Cardiff. He was later knighted.

Liz Truss and her chancellor Kwarsi Kwarteng brought in a new budget and the fall-out was extreme. As the markets reacted with horror, Mr Kwarteng was fired, most of his measures were reversed and with days Ms Truss announced she would step down, being replaced by Rishi Sunak after seven weeks.

Mr Sunak duly relieved Sir Robert of his cabinet duties, and both MPs now sit on the backbenches as we move towards a general election, probably in spring 2024.

But given the last 12 months, who knows?