Some in Cameron's negotiating team might well feel encouraged by the fact that Duda, a member of the European parliament since 2014, sat with the Eurosceptic and anti-federalist European Conservatives and Reformists grouping, which includes the Tories.
If their previous encounters were portrayed as a battle between the old Soviet Union and thrusting young reformists their meeting has already been coloured by Kasparov's political battle with Vladimir Putin's Russia.
But unlike O'Brien, Rosewater lacks confidence, and the old revolutionaries for whom he labours fear the reformists more than the rebels, which suggests totalitarian urges unconsummated.
The crown prince, once the hope of reformists, appears to have been sidelined by the hardline prime minister, in office for more than 40 years.
Also departing from their seats in the North East are the current European Conservatives and Reformists chairman Martin Callanan and the Lib Dem leader in Europe Fiona Hall.
Politics, even within the confines of the Islamic state, is as polarised as ever.Now the reformists are pondering how to pick themselves up for another fight: the first round of the coming presidential poll, on June 14th.
Equally, warns one former official, the ayatollah may fear that success for the president would give too big a boost to the reformists' prospects in elections over the coming 18 months for parliament and for the Assembly of Experts, a body of clerics partly selected by the ayatollah that, among other things, picks the supreme leader.
Others hoped that elections following a grand coalition would produce a realignment of parties, a new political firmament in which reformists shone brightly.A miserable showing by the DPJ in upper-house elections this summer could, at the worst, bring about another horribly "twisted" Diet, in which the opposition controls the upper chamber and the DPJ the lower.
The reformists are mulling over whether to throw in their lot with one of them.In this section You never know Wet and dry Gurgle and splutter Democracy?
Perhaps the supreme leader, despite his conservative leanings, wants to deny the reformists an excuse to turn their backs on the system.
But, as The Economist went to press, the high-minded Mr Moin was still not sure to run.The reformists' primary goal, ever since the council barred more than 2,000 of them from competing in last year's general election, has been to stave off extinction.
