Donald Trump is a dangerous man. He appears to be an impulsive, egotistical, blinkered narcissist. And he's in charge of the most powerful country in the world. I'll be very pleasantly surprised if we can get to 2020 without having to dig a bunker in the back garden.
Should he come to the UK on a state visit? Many of my friends feel very strongly that he shouldn't. Some of them are planning to go on a protest march. Lots of people have signed a petition (over a million of them), urging the Government to ban him.
It turns out that the petitioners tend to live in constituencies represented by the usual suspects, ie Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, Keir Starmer and so on. But that doesn't mean they are wrong. Neither does the fact that the same people did not blink when President Obama signed orders preventing people from some Middle Eastern countries going to the US, or when Theresa May went on a state visit to meet President Erdogan in Turkey.
There are three possible answers to the Trump question. One, politicians we find unappealing should never be allowed in. Two, they should sometimes be allowed, depending on the circumstances. Three, they should always be allowed.
I think most of us would dismiss number three. Would we want to entertain Pinochet or Hitler? No. Stalin? No. What about Stalin when he was keeping Hitler usefully occupied on the Eastern Front? Well maybe. Churchill certainly thought it was worth meeting Stalin at Yalta. Without the Russians Hitler might not have been overcome.
This consideration rather deals with point number one, and brings us to number two. You may find Trump unappealing, but he is also the leader of the most powerful country in the world, one with whom for a wide variety of reasons it pays to have good relations. I think May should offer him a state visit. I concede that there are other leaders who are absolutely vile and whom I wouldn't cultivate. Erdogan, for example (although hang on, Turkey is a member of NATO - does that make a differenc?) As far as I know, unlike Erdogan, President Trump has not imprisoned judges, beaten and tortured political opponents and closed down publications which have criticised him.
What if Trump had done all the things Erdogan had done? That's much harder. There is clearly a point at which a regime becomes so awful that no matter the disadvantage you your own country you really want to stay well clear. That point will be different for everyone of course.
I wouldn't criticise my friends for reaching it sooner than me, but I do think they are guilty of double standards. For why did they sit on their hands when Mrs May went to Turkey? Or when David Cameron invited the Chinese premier over and had a pint with him in a Cotswolds pub? Where were their million signatures then? Where was their march? Where were their complaints when a raft of Middle Eastern countries banned Israeli citizens? What did they do when Obama banned Iraqi refugees in 2011?
The truth is that President Trump is their very particular enemy. It would be foolish to say the most powerful man in the world was being picked on, but he's certainly being picked out for a level of opprobrium his opponents don't seem to be able to muster for people significantly worse.
