Were Putin to live until he was 100 he would doubtless still seek to cling to power. Jimmy Carter, who has died after reaching that great age, was president of the United States for just four years and lived on for 44 years after ending his one and only term in the White House.

Everybody knows that Jimmy Carter was America’s last truly liberal president until Barack Obama. But everybody is wrong. Carter was the first in the conservative line of presidents more commonly associated with Ronald Reagan.