Sanna Marin, Finland's international star and Northern Light, dims

It wasn’t just Finland’s size that made it so much the focus of the weekend’s three European elections. Montenegro and Bulgaria were less close-run. Some would say they weren’t as consequential either.

Finland, after all, was set to become Nato’s 31st member, meaning that it will take the defence alliance literally on to Russia’s border. But the biggest change in Finnish foreign policy in decades was not the biggest talking point ahead of the elections.

Instead, it was something more low key — the state of public finances.

More to the point was the somewhat short and tempestuous love affair Finns appear to have had with their now former prime minister, Sanna Marin. When she got the job six months after the 2019 election because Antti Rinne resigned over a labour dispute, Ms Marin became one of the world’s youngest prime ministers. She had won the internal party election by just three votes and despite her political inexperience — just four years as an MP and three years before that as a …