Except towards [Herman Van Rompuy,] the president of the European Council? You told him to his face he had ‘the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk’.3On February 24, 2010, he told Herman Van Rompuy, the first full-time president of the European Council: ‘We were told that, when we had a president, we’d see a giant global political figure. … I’m afraid what we got was you. … I don’t want to be rude, but … you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk. … You appear to have a loathing for the very concept of the existence of nation states. Perhaps that’s because you come from Belgium, which of course is pretty much a non-country.’