The word ‘immigrant’ has become so politically charged that the leader of the USA is willing to destroy the agricultural, tourist and other sectors of the economy in pursuing a policy of terrorising and deporting anyone with a sun tan. We have our own tinpot mini-me Trump on this side of then pond too, the loathsome Nigel Farage, a man who recently testified in Congress that the US should increase tariffs against the UK because it had turned into ‘North Korea’. If it was, he would be ‘disappeared’ on arrival back in the UK. This traitor would sacrifice British people’s jobs and living standards in order to get his hands on the reins of government.

I am the son of immigrants but, of course, I don’t get anyone screaming at me to ‘go back where you come from’ (which would of course be Birmingham). That’s because my family came from Ireland and I am white. However, I clearly remember someone saying just that to my father when I was a kid and of course the sign below was on many boarding houses.

I have had a taste of racism and it has always stayed with me. It is a bitter taste. How people with different skin tones and looks put up with it every day is beyond me. What is also beyond me is how people can virulently hate someone they have never met and know nothing about.

Times are hard and the world is going to hell in a handcart so people are looking for answers. Populist fascists such as Trump and Farage always have a simple and glib solution. The problem isn’t you and what you’ve let happen to the world, it’s all their fault. You know, those over there who look a bit different.

I used to wonder how Germany slipped into becoming a fascist Nazi state but no more. The USA is well on its way as it removes all the democratic guardrails, puts the military on its streets and seeks to shut down any dissenting views. I have despaired at my inability to do anything. It’s like standing on a hillside and seeing two trains coming towards each other at speed on a single track. There is nothing you can do except watch.