With hindsight I should have seen it coming. My question to Helmut Kohl was pretty straightforward: how healthy was it for a democracy to have one party with one leader seemingly hell-bent on staying in power forever? The location was a stuffy barn in the grounds of a dreamy priory in Bavaria where the grandees of Germany’s ruling centre-right parties had gathered to agree an electoral pact for an unprecedented fifth term in office. I had recently broken my collarbone, so my arm was in a sling. And it was this that gave the German chancellor the ammunition for a gruff, quick-witted response: “Looking at you I’d say that you’re the one with the health issues round here.” Cue laughter and one red-faced young correspondent.

Here was a consummate political operator at the top of his game and well-used to crushing much bigger obstacles in his path. At that time — the summer of 1997 — Kohl had been in office for almost 15 years and was the pre-eminent force in European politics — the man who, having delivered German unification, went on to be the driving force of continental integration.

Yet a year later Kohl and his Christian Democrats were voted out of office. The result was a stinging rebuke for Kohl, who died last week. But by then he had already long secured his place in the history books as the “unification chancellor”.