Andrew Roberts says Trump might even win a second term

Yet for all that we decry Trump as an oaf who should never have stood for office with such nugatory credentials – and it is true I described him as a clown before the election – here is the real surprise: he has not been the disaster many predicted.

Indeed he has (whisper it quietly) made rather a success of it.

Compared to Obama's last years in office, President Trump made a number of important gains which would categorically not have been achieved by his predecessor.

Take the $1.5 trillion tax cut, for example.

It has already persuaded Apple to repatriate hundreds of billions to the US and pay a $38 billion tax bill, opening the prospect of other American companies unleashing an avalanche of money hitherto kept overseas into the US economy.

Trump's choices – after several bad mis-steps – for his top officials has now produced an excellent team in the White House, Pentagon and elsewhere.

General James Mattis was always going to be a giant in the Defense Department, but General John F. Kelly as Chief of Staff and Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary are also significantly superior to Obama's lacklustre team.

Compared to Obama's last years in office, President Trump made a number of important gains which would categorically not have been achieved by his predecessor.

Trump's overturning of Obama's threat to put a post-Brexit Britain 'at the back of the queue' in future trade deals was welcome, as was his decision finally to recognise the reality of where the Israeli government has geographically been for decades, and move the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

He did that in the face of threats of a revolt across the Middle East that has completely failed to materialise.

Moreover, the military onslaught on Islamic State has been devastating in city after recaptured city, though not yet terminal as some have made out.