Biden’s job of healing US is huge

Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney told Donald Trump two days ago to “put his big boy pants on” and admit defeat. Trump should have taken that advice. But we’re not holding our breath for a dignified exit now.

If the last four years have taught us anything about the outgoing president, it is that he’s all mouth and no trousers.

There will be legal challenges, recounts, and much hot and ill-tempered air from the White House. But facts are facts. Mr Trump cannot dismiss Joe Biden’s victory as fake news.

And as Mr Biden said, it is time to heal. He has a big job on his hands.

He is acutely aware that he did not achieve the landslide predicted, painfully conscious that very nearly half of America voted for his rival. The healing process will be long and difficult. But Joe Biden has the determination, compassion and integrity to do it.

Kamala Harris, the first woman Vice-President of colour, will be there to help.

In Britain it took Boris Johnson more than an hour to congratulate the president-elect, and we can imagine he did so through gritted teeth.

Mr Biden is good news for America and the world, but less so for Downing Street.

The US trade deal the PM was banking on to rescue his floundering Brexit will be less easy.

It will mean starting again to work out where Northern Ireland fits into the post-EU jigsaw.

And Mr Biden has already said he sees our clownish Prime Minister as Mr Trump’s “physical and emotional clone”.

That dictators such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un are unhappy about a Biden victory speaks volumes for the renewed hope it brings to the free world.

No longer will we have a petulant, irascible, unpredictable man-child at the helm of the world’s most powerful country, but a grown-up. The era of dangerous populism is over. A new age of reason – and reasonableness – looks about to begin.