Baker has infuriated some Tories, but others regard him as the rising hope of the stern unbending Austrian economists.
Thoughtful, polite and Left-of-Centre, he was the Eurosceptic whom federalists found it hardest to dislike.
Leavers insist correctly that the EU is a political project first and foremost. Which helps to explain why this scheme is unlikely to fly.
“In my personal opinion, Olly Robbins should go to the Tower, in which case he should arrive by river.”
The latter has never had the clout nor the resources required for it to do its ever-expanding task. It has had to play catch-up.
Michael McManus uses the theatre to explore the potential for an anti-immigrant party to break away not from the Tories, but from Labour.
The referendum transferred from MPs themselves the decision as to whether to remain in or leave the EU and – with it, to regain our freedom to make our own laws.
One day the country’s voters may dig in against the long squeeze imposed on them from northern Europe. But don’t be too sure it will happen yet.
We need to rekindle l’esprit communautaire, on both sides of the channel. In Walpole’s famous phrase, “this dance can no longer go”.
I worked for both of them, and they were extraordinary human beings. But they were also both contingent, flawed, and also with their all-too-obvious blind spots.