There is widespread apprehension in Western governments at the potential policies of President-elect Trump, particularly in relation to global organisations such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and Nato. But he might have a beneficial impact on Vladimir Putin

he’s a septuagenarian billionaire with loose hands where women are concerned. A man politically incorrect to the point of parody, whose crude insults to his opponents take political discourse to a new low. A “friend of the working man” whose electoral supporters hope his Midas touch will rub off on them. A showman/businessman rather than a politician.

Yes, I know him well. Silvio Berlusconi that is, though the epithets apply just as accurately to Donald Trump. So we have been here before, though in a minor key. Italy is very far from having the importance of the US – and Berlusconi would have been forgiven a great deal had he carried through his promises to reform Italy’s dysfunctional central state and to bring back long-lost economic prosperity.

I suspect Trump’s failings, too, will fade into the background if the US middle classes start to feel that their concerns are being addressed and their hip pockets made fatter. His tax cutting and trillion-dollar infrastructure plans (if they materialise) resonate with a large slice of the electorate who have felt left behind by and alienated from the liberal elite.