One thing I’ll say about Trump – he does love Israel

There’s not much I’ll miss about Donald Trump. There is, admittedly, his elegant and enigmatic wife; how ironic that, at the Women’s Marches against a man loathed for his sexism and xenophobia, there was one female immigrant they didn’t mind stereotyping as a foreign bimbo. (Remember the ‘Free Melania’ placards and the insinuation that because English isn’t the First Lady’s first language (she speaks five) she’s stupid?)

Then there’s China. One of my dearest friends is Taiwanese, and although gay and liberal she prayed for the Orange Horror to win, understandably feeling that the world’s most ancient and most modern imperial superpower could rung rings around Sleepy Joe.

But the main thing I liked about the Trump administration was its attitude to Israel. Though a Gentile, I adore Israel; when I was on Desert Island Discs in 2013 I was the first castaway in the 70-year history of the show to choose the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah as my indispensable disc. Israel is a beacon of enlightenment in a wretched region.

From moving the American embassy to Jerusalem to bringing Bahrain, Sudan and the UAE to recognise it, the Trump administration has been nothing but good news for the tiny Jewish state. Seeing Mike Pompeo swanning around there this week – the first US secretary of state to officially visit an Israeli settlement, and such a friend of the country that a winery last year named a cheeky red after him as a show of appreciation – we friends of Israel were missing him already.

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