Yes, it is fun watching silly Leftists wailing and gnashing their teeth over President Trump’s victory. It is yet more evidence that such people have no real idea what is going on in the world.

But that does not prove that Mr Trump’s election is good news for the rest of us. Leave aside his deep personal unpleasantness, which is beyond dispute. Such nastiness is not unknown among Leftists and liberals. We have no real idea what he will do, because he does not know either.

Despite being the most cunning politician in the English-speaking world since the death of the late Princess Diana, Mr Trump (like her) is not especially intelligent or well-informed. It is a sad fact of politics that the most astute people are seldom the brightest, while the cleverest are usually bad at the feral behaviour which gets yo to the top.

He may do useful things by accident, but he may equally well do disastrous things.

I have one hope. With a bit of luck he will finally dispose of the sad, pitiable idea that there is a ‘special relationship’ between this country and the USA.

Nobody in the USA has ever heard of it, and America is not going to rescue us from our folly or our approaching bankruptcy. If we – as a nation and a people – finally grasp this, and accept our true position as a medium-sized independent country responsible for its own future, we might have some hope of survival in the century to come. If not, we will find our own shabbier cut-rate Trump to lead us to even deeper perdition.

In the USA, the old parties of left and right deserted and insulted their actual followers, and drove them up the wall with frustrated rage. Here, too, the same thing is happening, and shallow, irresponsible people will be the ones who benefit from it.

It is terrible to watch, and especially so if, like me, you have been warning against it for 20 years.

Justice at a snail’s pace

Britain’s mind is changing.

I get the impression that many who once accepted that Lucy Letby was certainly guilty

of the terrible crimes for which she was convicted are now (like me) not so sure. Yet the process of getting the case reopened is so slow that it makes a snail look like a Lamborghini.

If Ms Letby is not guilty, it could be ten long, hard years before she steps back out into the sunlight. Ten years!

Recently, Andrew Malkinson served 17 years for a crime he did not do. I know a bit about jails. Real, hard criminals do not suffer too much in prisons, which are – horrifyingly – partly under the control of people like them. But for the innocent, they are actual hell.

I understand the law must be cautious, but its procedures for granting and hearing appeals could be swifter. Equally important, once the Criminal Cases Review Commission has accepted the possibility of a miscarriage of justice, shouldn’t those involved be subject to a less rigorous form of imprisonment, away from the general population, with more visits and freer access to correspondence and phones?

Everyone I’ve mentioned this to says it’s impractical. But try to imagine the alternative, for an unharmful soul who really is innocent. It is unbearable.

Time for the CofE to put humanity over dogma

I really do not think that racial bigotry is a strong force in the Church of England, in general one of the most soppily liberal, politically correct and multicultural bodies in the country.

I heard recently of a vicar told by her superiors not to wear a dog collar at a Church conference lest it intimidate people. Yet a weird document published last week managed to suggest that its rural parishes seethe with prejudice.

I struggled through the ‘report’, which is written in Newspeak. It modishly refers to ‘UK Minoritised Ethnic’ (UKME) and ‘Global Majority Heritage’ (GMH) persons.

At one point it actually admits that the factual basis for its conclusions is rather thin, saying: ‘Ethnicity data ranges from patchy to largely non-existent, except for within four dioceses.’

It also manages to mention that the share of new vicars from UKME/GMH backgrounds has ‘more than doubled in the last six years’. It then slips in the information that ‘the proportion of UKME/GMH ordinands is broadly in line with the overall UKME/GMH population in England and Wales’.

Ah. I was rather taken by the clergyperson in the Birmingham diocese asked to ‘self-identify’ according to his or her ethnicity. He/she responded with ‘human’. That, in my view, is the proper Christian response to this sort of stuff.

A cold, dark truth that eco-zealots can’t accept

Here’s an amusing game to play with any Green Zealots you know. Pick a windless day, such as we had for most of last week in much of the country. Get them to look at the ‘Energy Dashboard’, available instantly on any phone. And what you and they will find is that almost all the vaunted, hideous windmills that have been inflicted on our landscape and territorial waters were last week as much use as a wet paper bag.

If it were not for huge numbers of (ungreen) gas-fired power stations, for our dwindling nuclear fleet and for power imports from foreign nations, we would be cold and dark.

They will drivel on about batteries and ‘storage’, but in fact no technology exists which can store very much power.

Greenism is a fanatical cult, not a rational position. Far too few people in politics, the media or the Church (whose message has now largely been replaced with the supreme commandment ‘Thou Shalt be Green’) have been prepared to stand up to these intolerant, furious utopians.

Fight them now or we will face economic catastrophe within 20 years, thanks to their ideas.

It’s also worth asking the same people, who will often say that such events as the recent floods in Valencia, are caused by CO2 emissions, to explain the logical chain between the two things. Most can’t even try.

You could also point out that Valencia was hit by a similar

flood in October 1957. But, in the way of all fanatics, they will become angry rather than try to defend their position.