It was a warm, cloudy evening on May 25th 2014, and the prime minister was feeling confident. As opposition leader five years earlier Ken Clarke had led the Conservatives to a solid victory in the European election on a "pro-Europe, pro-growth" platform. The governing Labour Party had come second, but so dramatic had been its collapse that the foreign secretary, David Miliband, had resigned only hours after his cabinet colleague, James Purnell. Gordon Brown had quashed the rebellion, but his authority had been permanently damaged. His attempts to portray the Tories as "posh boys" had fallen apart when Mr Clarke—speaking with a proud Nottinghamshire lilt—had pointed out that Labour's cabinet had more privately educated members than his shadow cabinet. Mr Miliband had gone on to seize the Labour leadership after his party's worst-ever election result in 2010, but his wonkish language and increasingly frequent flashes of arrogance had cost the opposition dear. His speech on "Leveraging our National Potentialities going forward" in particular had attracted widespread mockery. Mr Clarke's down-to-earth talk and willingness to shoot from the hip, by contrast, had served him well. When he had announced that the Tories would seek to legalise cannabis and halve rates of imprisonment, his approval ratings had soared. Not everyone had been happy, but Mr Clarke had dealt with the fallout. When a group of backbenchers had risen up to demand a referendum on Britain's EU membership, the prime minister's passionately pro-European speech (delivered alongside Richard Branson in Birmingham) had been powerful enough to turn the media against them. Peter Bone's later appearance on "I'm a Celebrity" was not an edifying affair, most had agreed.

When Russian agitation in Ukraine had given way to incursions into the Crimea, Mr Clarke had rapidly mobilised his colleagues in the European People's Party (EPP). The Stafford Summit would soon come to be seen as a turning point in the West's political fortunes—the point at which the European powers stood together and issued eye-wateringly tough sanctions against Russian officials. Mr Clarke's late-night cigar sessions with Angela Merkel—conducted in fluent German with the help of his Europe minister, Gisela Stuart—were later described as a decisive factor. Moreover, the prime minister's roll-out of renewable energy and crack-down on opaque financial holdings in London had made Britain near-immune to Russia's retaliation. He had been well received by Mr Putin's successor, Alexei Navalny, the month before.

As the results came through, Mr Clarke felt vindicated. The Conservatives now held 45 seats in the European Parliament, so could look Ms Merkel's CDU eye-to-eye in the EPP. Mr Clarke knew that this would help him promote his young protégé, David Cameron, to be Europe's new high representative for foreign affairs. Mr Cameron had done an excellent job as foreign secretary, despite a Eurosceptic streak that had occasionally unnerved his boss. Both the chancellor, Theresa May, and her chief secretary to the Treasury, George Osborne, had always assured Mr Clarke that Mr Cameron well understood the economic advantages of EU membership.

Perusing the results tables in his morning copy of The Independent, Mr Clarke stumbled across the leader of a minor party that had won a few council seats in Kent. "Is is pronounced like 'carriage'?", thought the prime minister, before flicking to the results of the Monaco Grand Prix.