Ranter they can’t kick off the bus

As the harangue thundered on, the representatives of Nato stared at the wall. Sometimes they stared at their plates. Sometimes they stared at their hands. And sometimes they stared at the press.

They stared at anything, in short, but the source of the harangue: Donald Trump.

The Nato summit had just begun, and, at a breakfast meeting in Brussels,the US President was barracking his hosts over Germany’s alleged dependence on Russian energy. On and on he raged. His hosts didn’t dare to interrupt.

Instead, they simply sat there, at the other side of the breakfast table, in a tense, awkward and pallid silence.

It was an extraordinary scene. And yet, at the same time, strangely familiar. The representatives of Nato were behaving like bus passengers do when an angry drunk staggers aboard, and starts ranting, loudly and to no one in particular.

That is: they were looking away, saying nothing, keeping themselves to themselves, and acting as if the man wasn’t there — while clearly praying that he would get off at the next stop.

The difference, of course, was that the ranting interloper was not some unknown alcoholic whom none of them would ever have to see again. He was the most powerful man on Earth.

None of them even dared to query his figures (Germany gets just 9 per cent of its energy from Russia). The harangue rumbled on.

Today Trump arrives in Britain. Good luck, Prime Minister.