William Hague was much traduced in the final days of his service as foreign secretary for being a blank slate. It was thought to be largely his fault that Britain had no foreign policy worthy of the name. But Mr Hague’s limitations were those of his government. The Coalition has no foreign policy: no solutions to offer in the growing chaos of a world without moral leadership. When the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary go on their diplomatic jaunts abroad, they are scarcely more than sales reps for British industry and trade. The one remaining superpower, the United States, abandons any plausible authority by retreating from its own “red lines” and making it clear that it is domestic issues that are its concern now.

The world can go away and sort out its own problems while America cuts back on defence spending, removes missile shields from Eastern Europe (in spite of the rise of imperial Russia), and “pivots” toward Asia largely for trade purposes. Not that that direction is unproblematic either: China is becoming increasingly aggressive toward Japan. Indeed, this is the geopolitical picture as we see it now: with the wilful decline of the West’s influence, the new superpowers – Russia and China – will fill the vacuum. China will become an economic and military force that could subjugate much of Asia, with inevitable consequences for the financial security of the West. Russia will lay claim to as much of the old Soviet territory as it dares, and will deal with Islamist terrorism (because it has its own concerns about Chechnya and the Muslim minorities within its sphere of influence) in its characteristic way – and it won’t be pretty.