Trump raises a bitter laugh as Britain and America compete to kneecap themselves

Well praise be for Donald Trump.

And that’s something I never thought I’d write.

But on a day when this country’s government confirmed with its Brexit papers that it is prepared to impale the nation on the altar of its ideological extremism, those of us on this side of the Atlantic were in need of something, anything, to raise a smile.

It came courtesy of Fox & Friends, a show that sometimes looks like a Saturday Night Live satire of the right wing until you realise that, no, they’re actually serious. They really do think that way.

Watch out, the Donald declared, you get rid of me and you’ll end up poorer! The booming American stockmarket is going to take a dive if I’m ousted, and the economy’s going with it.

“I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor,” he warned.

Americans with a second nationality, you know what to do if it happens. Unless your extra passport happens to be a British one, in which case you’d best stay put come what may.

Mr Trump raised the spectre of impeachment in the wake of his former attorney Michael Cohen implicating him in the payment of hush money to women who claimed to have had affairs with him. On the same day, his former campaign chief Paul Manafort was convicted on two counts of bank fraud, five counts of tax fraud and one charge of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. It was a low point in a presidency filled with them. Hence the attempt to get back on the front foot via a softball interview on Fox & Friends.

Mr Trump appears not to have noticed the record bull market that investors in American shares have been enjoying got started under the Presidency of his predecessor Barack Obama, or that his trade policies are starting to bite at several sectors and may do still more harm as this week’s latest batch of tariffs on Chinese goods work their way through the system. America First baby!

No wonder nations that trade with it are increasingly looking at alternatives to an unreliable partner. If Britain’s dismal leaders had any sense at all they’d take note.

Both countries seem determined to kneecap themselves.

Of course, these points have been made before, and by many others. They’re apt to get dismissed as fake news on Fox News, which is a rare outlet the President and his supporters take seriously. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Fortune smiles on America in one respect. There’s a mid term election coming that will give voters there a chance to tie the President’s hands by removing the House and/or the Senate from Republican control should they so desire. And they’ll get another bite at the cherry in a couple of years time. It's economy ought to benefit.

British voters looking at a truly bleak outlook, and a Brexit that already has made them poorer, should be so lucky.