Today I went on my first march in 20 years to protest Trump, and I'd do it again

“Hey hey, hey ho, Donald Trump has got to go!”

Go where, I wasn’t sure. There were plenty of alternative chants and causes on display on the Trump protest march, however, so perhaps it didn’t matter too much.

“Say it loud and say it clear, refugees are welcome here!” That was another favourite.

So multifarious are Donald Trump’s sins, that there really was something for everyone to get stuck into.

There were placards denouncing his sexist attitudes (“Toxic masculinity ruins the party again”); others focussed on green issues (“You can’t comb over climate change”); while some had some to protest against his approach to immigration (“Build bridges not walls”).

For some, anger was expressed crudely; “Fuck Trump” appeared on more than a few signs and banners. But there was plenty of humour on display too – some of it sharp, some gentle.

One slogan summed things up nicely: “So bad I couldn’t decide what to make a sign about.” Well, quite.

Not a habitual protester, I had felt moved last December to promise that, if Trump were granted a state visit, I would hit the streets for only the second time in 20 years (the last protest, against tuition fees in 1998, having been hugely effective…).

I could perhaps have got out of it on a technicality – this isn’t officially a full state occasion – but that seemed a rather ratty thing to do.

So that was how I found myself gathering with the throngs around Portland Place in central London to show my opposition – not to Trump being here per se, but to his politics.

It has always seemed to me eminently reasonable that the British government should wish to invite the 45th president of the United States to these shores. The relationship between the two countries indeed demands that diplomacy must continue, even in these most undiplomatic of times.

Nevertheless, so confident is Trump in his obnoxious approach to government that it feels incumbent on those who are dismayed by his attitude and policies to make their feelings known.

Boy, was it hot though. The heatwave may be good for the Donald’s luminous tan, but not so much for an idiot (yours truly) who turned up to a crowded protest march in tweed jacket and corduroys.

As the multitude swelled, however, there was no dimming of enthusiasm, even though there was also no sign of the march actually beginning.

Finally, the protest moved off, groups bumping up against one another as we wended our way down Regent Street towards Trafalgar Square. Drums and trombones combined with rather less tuneful whistles and claxons. There was dancing, but not by me – I confess that would have been a step too far.

I slipped away without even a hint of being kettled, walking back to the office through Hyde Park, where The Feeling were mid-set at British Summer Time festival. I heard the strains of “I love it when you call”, which was not the dominant feeling of the protest I’d left behind.

No doubt to the likes of Steve Hilton (former strategy director for David Cameron turned Fox News pundit), I was “virtue signalling” by going along today – although it’s odd that the phrase has become so condemnatory.

In any case, the vast majority of those protesting in London and Oxfordshire, at Chequers and Windsor over the last two days have done so not to highlight their own “virtue” (hard though that may be to believe to Trump and his supporters, many of whom see little beyond the cult of their own self).

No, they marched and chanted to draw attention to the utter amorality of Trump’s presidency.

It is, after all, a presidency which has sown division, coarsened debate, disregarded truth, legitimised misogyny and discrimination, and poured scorn on any who would seek to govern or do business by consensus.

Trump isn’t wrong about everything (on Nato’s financing, for instance, he has a point), but he represents regression in a difficult and dangerous age.

Someone tweeted me when I got back to my desk. “Did you change anything?” he asked disdainfully, as if I’d somehow expected Trump to see me among the crowds and immediately realise the error of his ways.

Such is the way of the world now. Why bother doing anything if it doesn’t produce immediate results, deliver an instant dividend?

That indeed, is the Trump way. For the rest of us, we will have to play the long game to keep compassion, tolerance and decency alive.

That was why I trod London’s hot tarmac today, and I will do it again if and when he returns. It’s the right thing to do – to show that I give a damn.