On Wednesday, October 30, we saw the first ever budget by a female Chancellor of the Exchequer. It did what Labour tends to do. It tried to improve the lives of the majority of the population by a variety of means, including increasing the minimum wage (called by those least likely to experience it a ‘living wage’) and shoring up the public services on which most of us depend.

It was met with an explosion of anger from some of those with a different view, far better off than you or I. These are people who own companies, national newspapers, multi-million-pound houses and the Conservative Party, and they want to use their wealth, power, and privilege to bring this government down.

Their views were presented forcefully by a small number of prominent professional politics watchers on the broadcast media, individuals who each, I noted, in a phrase that recently had resonance, ‘earn more than the Prime Minister’. I listened carefully for any mention in these criticisms of a moral dimension to government, of a country where wealth and economic growth benefits all, where democracy has meaning. I listened in vain.

This was a group whose Liberté to continue to rule, to exploit, denies any thought of Égalité or Fraternité. These are not selfless people. Why anyone would prefer to elect the self-serving is quite beyond me. I want representatives who will represent and who will at least try to make my life better.

The great hope of the Right is to be Kemi Badenoch, elected leader just three days after the budget of a rump parliamentary opposition. I am a watcher of politics as much as I am an activist, and Kemi is the only one of 121 MPs who I once found it easy to watch. OK she’s till settling in, but she will need a more polished performance in in-depth interviews.

There is pressure on her to be visible, to bring her party back to prominence, but given her tendency to blurt out a range of extreme positions, that may not be wise. Others will counsel the approach that brought Keir Starmer to electoral power, that she sit back and let the Government self-destruct.

Maybe this will work; who can tell? Being serious and caring does not of itself ensure competent government, but it is a good basis for it. I would advise Ms Badenoch, however, that winter fuel payments should never have been given to the wealthy, and that the social fabric of the UK would not survive a return to the policy of letting the NHS and other public services wither and die. We are not the USA, with its restricted private affluence and universal public squalor, where a sizeable underclass works three jobs to pay for their medical care.

Joan Baez once sang, hauntingly, ‘If living were a thing that money could buy …’ That great nation, with its 21st century technology and 19th century social economics, is now to be the plaything of ‘the Donald’, called a man-baby by the Daily Star and far worse by members of our government!

The popular pastime of the moment is to predict the actions of D Trump, the most unpredictable of Presidents. I wouldn’t join in if I didn’t feel I have an original take.

It would be surprising if Forty-Seven did not engage in some initial blood-letting. Revenge served hot is sweet. We know also that he adores a laissez-faire, deregulated world, beloved also by some of the British elite, and that he has in the past shown signs of racism and misogyny.

These should, at least, provide a pattern and structure to his administration. For the rest, this is a man with the attention span of a toddler, and that should start to show now that his egomaniacal quest for a return to power has been successful. Might he try, Putin-like, to change the revered American constitution to allow him further terms of office. I am not sure that even a Trump-appointed Supreme Court would wear that.

Also, he is a man of advancing years, so that, without personal motivation, we might expect a significant loss of focus. Biden was motivated to keep going by an instinct for public service, but Trump?He is also a man who may be more interested in his genetic legacy than his political one.

One thought tickles at me and refuses to let go. Might he go full Kim Jong-Un and look for a way to ditch his Vice President, Vance, and replace him with a family member, male of course? He is desperate, we are told, to see the ending of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. No problem with that. Such conflicts do have a tendency to deprive Presidents of their beauty sleep, and Trump is easily irritated.

If he bails on Ukraine, which is not certain as it would be claimed by Putin as a victory over the West, it would be a sad moment. If our government followed suit, I would be apoplectic.However bad it becomes, I shall be watching.