One final roll of the dice for veteran Remainer

Ken Clarke got stuck into politics at almost the same time as the UK joined the EU, campaigning as a young Tory in support of joining the then European Community.

Now Remainers hope the Father of the House – the longest-serving male MP – caps off his career by serving as the emergency prime minister who stops the UK leaving the bloc.

Born and bred in Nottinghamshire, Mr Clarke, 79, became MP for Rushcliffe in 1970, shortly after leaving

Cambridge University. He spent more than 20 years serving in the governments of Margaret Thatcher, John Major and David Cameron.

Politics is not his only passion. The cigar-chomping fan of jazz and cricket indulges his interests with visits to Ronnie Scott’s and Trent Bridge.

As a minister he was persuaded to carry a mobile phone, but friends found that he never used it – a similar attitude he had towards email and social media.

“Tory modernisation has never quite got as far as getting Ken Clarke to carry a mobile phone,” David Cameron observed. He briefly had one, but said: “The problem is that people keep ringing me on it.”

He opposed both Brexit and the holding of the referendum, but got on personally with Eurosceptics, although his scorn for their politics was obvious.

During the 2016 Tory leadership contest, he was recorded telling a friend that Michael Gove “did us all a favour by getting rid of Boris. The idea of Boris as prime minister is ridiculous”.

In June 2016, he declared that “this is my last Parliament”, but the following summer’s snap election prompted him to postpone his retirement to stand again.

In his memoirs, he said that he owed his political career to his “most extraordinary luck”, but acknowledged that “my luck did not take me to be prime minister of my country”.

There would be no greater sign of his extraordinary luck than his fellow Remainers managing to catapult him into Downing Street.