However, the Prime Minister’s attempt to put the blame on Mainwaring had not been enough to call off the baying hounds of the media and his increasingly outraged and vocal party, which had conveniently forgotten that they had been happy enough to sanction the various defense cuts when it had been their seats at risk in previous elections.

Walker had quickly seen the way the wind was blowing and tried to tell Spencer that resignation was the only honorable way out. But to no avail. Instead, recalling Churchill’s victory in a confidence debate in the House of Commons in 1942, after the disasters of the fall of Singapore and Tobruk, Spencer had called for a confidence debate, too. Despite an impassioned plea for national unity at this moment of historic crisis, it had, predictably, been a disaster, with one hitherto loyal backbencher after another lining up to condemn the Prime Minister’s leadership and call for his resignation.

Back in “The Den” in Number 10 Downing Street, after the overwhelming vote of no confidence, Walker had rehearsed the traumatized Spencer in the resignation speech he had quickly scribbled for him, before leading the now wet-eyed Prime Minister to face the array of media microphones and TV cameras outside the front door of Number 10. Here, in full view of the world, first pink-faced and finally blubbering like a chastened schoolboy discovered doing something unspeakable, Spencer’s glittering political career had ended in tongue-tied humiliation.

Walker, however, was not one to look back, for this was also an opportunity to further his own interests. He had always maintained close links with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Oliver Little; tough, ruthless, sardonic, but also a masterly political operator, who had been extending his tentacles of influence across Whitehall to take advantage of the day when the Prime Minister eventually stepped down. That day had now come earlier than anticipated. Nevertheless, Walker was quick to see the opportunity to consolidate his own influence by supporting Little’s leadership aspirations.

All it had taken was the merest of hints to the editor of the Sun and selected others that, while Little had an excellent relationship with the American president, the other leading candidate to take over as PM “carried no weight in Washington.” Unsurprisingly, given the current crisis, the country needed a prime minister with clout inside the Washington beltway. Therefore, it was Little who had seen the Queen that morning to confirm his appointment as her new Prime Minister and head of Her Majesty’s Government. He now sat at his desk; square-shouldered, gruff-voiced and pugnacious, glaring at a clearly unhappy Everage, still Defense Secretary.