On Politics and Vanity.

The result of last night’s election showed that Mrs May made a gross miscalculation in calling a snap election. The Tories did have a clear overall majority, but now we have a hung parliament. Several of her colleagues in her own party say that Mrs May must resign, and nearly everybody who is anybody in Britain and the EU is saying the same thing. But Mrs Ratty is hanging on.

Let’s look at one angle on this. The only way the Tories can govern the country effectively is by relying on the support of the DUP, the biggest conservative party in Northern Ireland, and that’s what Mrs May says she is going to do. But what happens when there’s a tricky vote in the Commons and the DUP say: ‘OK, we’ll support you, but only if you’ll give us concessions which suit us in Northern Ireland.’

At that point Sinn Fein and the Catholics start getting fractious because they can see their interests being shovelled down the drain, back to the sewers where they were in the bad old days. There’s a danger that the Good Friday Agreement could collapse. We might even see a return of the Troubles which caused such misery in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

And all to serve Mrs Ratty’s ego. Is it surprising that we’ve suddenly forgotten America’s Donald Trump? We now have our own.