What is even clearer, however, is that Friday’s debacle has left the EU itself in an even sorrier state than Mr Cameron. It was the Prime Minister who was, forlornly, trying to uphold the rules of that same treaty, by insisting that it is not the right of the European Parliament to nominate a candidate for the presidency. And we are now left with the astonishing spectacle of his colleagues having landed themselves with a man who many of them privately agree is hopelessly unfitted for such a taxing job: a chain-smoking boozer, a bad-tempered loner who hates paperwork and whose name was seemingly known to less than one per cent of those supposed to have “voted” for him in the recent Euro elections. His only merit in their eyes can be that he has spent his entire career championing further EU integration, which is why he will give two fingers to any attempt by Mr Cameron to win any reduction in the EU’s powers.