After the assassination of President Kennedy, De Gaulle was asked what would become of his widow, Jackie. He replied: “She will end up on the yacht of an arms dealer.” With a little licence for the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis’s exact business, it was one of the great prophetic lines of the age. I wonder how many among the rapturous crowds who greeted their new prime minister on that glad, confident morning in May 1997, or the MPs and commentators who drooled over him then, would have guessed with similar prescience: he’ll end up on the board of JP Morgan.

Other prime ministers have looked for nice little earners after retirement, by way of unreadable memoirs or dubious directorships, but there has always been an almost admirably brazen quality to Tony Blair’s avarice. Within months of leaving No 10 he has picked up several million for his memoirs, £250,000 a time for speaking engagements, and now an annual £500,000 for providing “strategic advice and insight” to Morgan, the US investment bank, which will take him a few days a month. As the 19th-century Earl of Glasgow might have said, a fellow can jog along on that.

The Brits might say, “Quid pro quo”…deferred payments delivered.