While the newest recruit girds his loins for a $7 million memoir and rumoured postings ranging from Chancellor of Oxford University to head of Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association, more seasoned members are settling into suitably grandiose retirements. Baroness Thatcher snorts whiskies with dictators, George Bush senior guides the hand of his newly-promoted offspring, Jimmy Carter tours th world as an “international mediator” and Boris Yeltsin is “advising” Vladimir Putin while pursuing an interest in duck hunting.

But what of that other gargantuan of the world stage, John Major? Teaching A-level politics at St Ivo comprehensive school in Cambridgeshire, apparently.

Headteacher Mike Mahoney assures us honest John has not completely lost the trappings of power: “He won’t give you a time of arrival because of security. He comes through the side entrance, gives the students two hours and then goes.”