Pacts with the devil do not generally end well. That may have been one of the doubts that the British Prime Minister banished from her mind as she journeyed to Washington last week to become the new President’s first official foreign visitor. But it may come back to haunt her. She did her duty adroitly, establishing a personal connection with Donald Trump in the name of the national British interest. He is new to all this, and in the presence of the practised professional politician that she is, he adopted a statesmanlike tone.

It did not last long. President Trump continued to issue decree after decree which manifestly contradicted both good sense and basic civilised values. These gave Theresa May’s undoubted diplomatic achievement a morally ambiguous complexion. In headline terms, Mr Trump says he wants to stop Muslims from certain countries going to America, deport illegal immigrants from Mexico and build a 2,000 mile wall to keep them out, and torture any suspected terrorists who may fall into American hands.