Never forget Trump’s a bully

Pity we need his favour FOREIGN minister Tobias Ellwood writes: “The Asad regime has lost all legitimacy.” President Assad has also lost an s.

A CONTEMPORARY of mine at school was called Snotkins.

It was a rotten name with which to be lumbered. The very sound of it conjures up a needy, nerdy, whiny, weedy, snivelling little swot. And Snotkins was all those things.

That’s not his real name, though it was something like it.

But Snotkins could have grown up to be a libel lawyer for all I know so it will have to do.

Snotkins had few friends and was atrociously bullied, by one elder lad in particular. I wasn’t one of the bullies, but like so many others I stood by and did nothing.

It was not until later I read the famous quote by the 18th Century Irish statesman Edmund Burke who I came to much admire.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

It was repeated by John F Kennedy, and I cannot tell you by how many MPs since.

And each time I hear it I think of Snotkins and am ashamed.

His schooldays were endless agonies of preventable misery as he wondered where the next blow would come from, knowing no one was going to lift a finger in his defence.

The man inaugurated as 45th President of the United States reminds me of the boy who used to beat up Snotkins.

Donald Trump is the classic bully, picking on those he knows will not fight back.

Like the disabled reporter he so cruelly mimicked. Like mocking Fox News’s Megyn Kelly’s menstrual cycle – and then pretending he was referring to her nose. And boasting that he could sexually assault women by grabbing their genitals because he was too famous for them to resist.

Jibes at Hillary Clinton were also below the belt. Theresa May is now going to have to be terribly nice to this terrible

man because he is offering a juicy trade deal just when Brexit means we need it most.

I hope she remembers Burke’s words when she does.

And if Snotkins is reading this and recognises himself I can only say to him, too late now I know, that I am truly sorry.