Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, sounded cruel but shrewd when she targeted the key questions for state spending and stock market investors this week. What’s our priority? Welfare or warfare: bullets or benefits?

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the economic question has become an existential one. National sovereignty means nothing unless you can defend it.

Now Argentina is challenging Britain’s ability to preserve the independence of the Falkland Islands, established by force of arms 44 years ago, Prime Minister Andy Burnham could be forgiven for feeling under attack from all sides.

Big is not always beautiful, and SpaceX was by far the largest stock market flotation ever, but this small DIY shareholder remains sceptical about anything that sounds like faith-based investment. It is quite possible to be the most exciting business on this planet and a bad deal for subscribers in the initial public offer (IPO).

Food and fuel are the fundamental requirements to keep us warm and in work. So, if investors are looking for assets that will always be needed, despite an increasingly unpredictable world, it makes sense to consider exposure to both these sectors.

Whatever happens next in the Middle East and Ukraine, food will never go out of fashion – even if warfare makes it more expensive. Archer Daniels Midland (stock market ticker: ADM) is one of the biggest agricultural commodities companies in the world, processing and transporting soybeans, corn and wheat from field to fork.

How will investors be affected by our new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, the former Mayor of Manchester? What opportunities and challenges will he create for shareholders?Probably Burnham’s most controversial financial statement to date was when he said Britain “needs to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets”. But he subsequently emphasised: “I have never said you can just ignore the bond markets” and described himself as “completely committed” to fiscal rules.

Half of humanity is said to include many individuals who consider this confectionary to be “better than sex”. Meanwhile, the rest of us are more likely to regard this sweet as an increasingly expensive treat.

Yes, I am talking about chocolate; a global taste phenomenon whose geographic origins and prices are surprisingly specific. Just two countries in West Africa – Ghana and the Ivory Coast – produce 70% of the world supply of this precious powder.

Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are human tragedies and economic disasters about which most individual investors can do precisely nothing.

Do investors get older and wiser or just wealthier? What do I know now that I wish I had known when younger? These are topical questions because I have just bought some shares for my baby granddaughter, Cressida.

Without wishing to sound morbid, I might not be around by the time she reaches adulthood and, to be candid, it is even less likely that an 18 year-old will be interested in investment. But I hope that owning a few shares will give darling Cressie a reason to do so and possibly even dig out this digital clipping for six tips on how to make the most of her modest capital.

Income-seeking investors can shoot to score 8% annual income from assets that are generally regarded as less risky than ordinary shares. Better still, some of these funds have increased their distributions by more than inflation in recent years.

Several examples of high and rising income can be found in the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) ‘Debt, Loans and Bonds’ sector but it is important to understand that the underlying assets are not risk-free. That’s why professional fund management, which investment trusts automatically provide, can prove particularly valuable.

You can’t eat a ‘real return’ but rising income from disciplined dividend investment can pay for a pleasant retirement. This beats having your standard of living cut in half by inflation when you are too old to do anything about it. That’s the dismal prospect facing many people preparing for retirement with life savings that lack protection against the insidious effects of inflation.

Even apparently small reductions in the purchasing power of money can have big effects over the 20 years or so that the typical pensioner may expect to spend in retirement. Politicians and everyone working in the public sector need not trouble their heads about any of this, because their defined benefit pensions have inflation-protection subsidised by the good old taxpayer. But everyone in the private sector, who must pay for our own retirement with defined contribution pensions, had better think about how we can preserve – or even increase – the purchasing power of our savings.