The Foreign Secretary [William Hague] believes history has diminished as a factor in the formulation of British foreign policy in recent years and needs to be re‑emphasised. With this in mind, he has liberated the FCO’s small corps of in‑house historians from a basement in a satellite building and installed them in a newly refurbished library in the department’s imposing main premises in King Charles Street, off Whitehall.

“Just as one draws on economists and people with specialist knowledge of a particular country, so we should be drawing on the insights provided by our historians,” he says, taking a break from overseeing the British response to the crisis in Syria. “The historians are an obvious resource and they were not appreciated by the last administration. They were languishing in a basement and now the light is shining on their books. It is intended to be a signal to the whole Foreign Office to use them, and to remember the importance of understanding history.”