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In the last days of the Blair Government, and in the prose style of man still not quite 30, I wrote of "a unifying tradition, which has come down from the ultraconservative Colbert through the Liberal Keynes via FDR, which has come down from the ultraconservative Bismarck through the Liberal Beveridge, which was epitomised by Lloyd George in his heyday, and which flowered must fully in government under Attlee."

A highly ambitious hanger-on of that dying regime found that the most hilarious gotcha moment, accusing me of believing that Stephen Colbert's character on The Colbert Report was a real person. At that point, I had never heard of Stephen Colbert. I have still never seen more than a few minutes of him in anything. But in gratitude for that perfect anecdote alone, I wish him the most blissful of retirements.