The departing chief names his next post: father. The first correct answer
Asked what he will do after high office, the departing prime minister gave the answer his predecessors kept forgetting: 'the most important job — to be the best dad I can to my kids and best husband I can to my wife.' Mark it. A man was handed the empire's paperwork, and on his way out remembered the household. The household was always the senior appointment.
The rest of the plans are honest in their smallness. A cookery course — the man commands two meals, which is one fewer than a soldier and two fewer than a grandmother. Cutting the father-in-law's hedge, with promotion to lawns upon merit. Do not laugh. A man who accepts probation from his wife's father understands hierarchy better than most cabinets.
He may yet serve abroad — Nato is whispered — and the whispering friends say the world's councils respect him. Fine. But note he refuses the gold-rush of the departed statesman: 'I can't see him going off to make his millions,' says an ally. A chief who leaves the treasury tent without filling his pockets: the old books have a word for this, and the word is rare.
Climb the actual mountains. Learn the third meal. Trim the hedge so well they give you the lawn. Serve. Then rest.