FROM OUR DIPLOMATIC WRITERS

A SENIOR BRITISH diplomat says that Donald Trump’s serial humiliation of European politicians is merely an exercise in truth, following decades where the dominant Americans did all their bullying and humiliation of the European vassals behind closed doors.

“What you see is the truth as it has been since 1945, and earlier, laid bare,” says Sir Fotherington Musselbrain-Tottingbird, whose single-handed defence of the British Embassy in Dublin against an Ulster Loyalist mob who thought they were attacking the Irish representative in Belfast, earned him a George Cross. “Churchill was utterly humiliated by Roosevelt in front of Stalin and most European leaders – except perhaps De Gaulle – have suffered humiliations on a semi-regular basis ever since. It’s just the Yanks did it all diplomatically, in corners and with obfuscation and delicacy. You never saw it and those on the receiving end hardly knew it was happening. With Trump it’s front and centre and ugly. But the truth often is.”