These being the most influential 300 square-feet in the whole country, they look remarkably frugal. The lamps and ubiquitous candles form a choreography of asymmetric shadows on the pastel-coloured walls. If it were not for the copies of local and international dailies scattered on the mid-century teak desk, it would be hard to guess that this is the office of the editor-in-chief of the most important newspaper in the country.

I am about to be seated on one of two opposing dark-brown leather armchairs next to the desk, and I ask to have a glimpse of the majestic view from the corner office onto Copenhagen City Hall Square. Alas, I do not get to breathe any of the self-importance I had anticipated: the square has been transformed into a gigantic crater for the construction of a new subway line. It has been a frustratingly long project, marred with delays and minor accidents. Most Danes are fed up with the Italian contractors widely blamed for the blunders – even though afterwards they are immensely proud of the unmanned metroline they have delivered. “I really can't say”, answers the soft-spoken secretary with a smile, when I ask when they will be finished.

Before serving at the helm of Politiken, Denmark's leading daily, Bo Lidegaard had done most other things. A career diplomat, he was a top advisor of successive prime ministers and embodies the glorious technocratic tradition that sustains democratic institutions in Europe's North. As a historian, he has chronicled the origins and development of the modern Danish state and the life of some of its most defining statesmen. His best-known book Countrymen recounted the story of the rescue of Danish Jews in 1943, and was a bestseller translated into several languages. His name does not appear on the ballot paper (though the surname does, as Lidegaard's younger brother was Denmark's foreign minister). Yet this diverse background makes him something of a polymath of Danish democracy.

Newspaper editors are legendary for their short attentionspan and even shorter fuse. So precious is time in blue-chip journalism, that the Financial Times at one point offered one-to-one chats with the editors in end-of-year charity auctions at Christie’s. Here I did not have to bid in order to obtain a full 45-minute conversation starting with the origins of modern Scandinavian statehood in the nineteenth century.