THERE is no easy way to say this.
But Andrew Neil is greeting like a wee baby. His beloved Donald Trump has betrayed him after years of adulation.
The veteran broadcaster has been left distraught after the US president described Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator”.
Responding to the latest of Trump’s unhinged rants, Neil said the president had “went bonkers” and that his comments were “very worrying”. Welcome to reality, Neil, the rest of us have been here for some time.
The former BBC pundit added: “Every claim he makes – from America giving a lot more than Europe to Ukraine, Zelensky support's being down to 4% and Zelensky being a dictator because he's not called elections (neither did Churchill when we fought for our freedom) – is demonstrably untrue.
“More worrying than that every one is a Kremlin talking point/piece of Putin propaganda.
“Why does Trump slag off Zelensky yet never have a harsh word to say about Putin. Bizarre and distressing.”
But in an embarrassing state of affairs, Neil now finds himself in the same camp as people he chastised as humourless pearl-clutchers just three months ago.
Here he is in November parsing the reasons for Trump’s decisive victory: “Ordinary voters take Trump's pronouncements a lot less seriously than the largely liberal-Left American commentariat. The bloviators who dominate broadcasting work themselves into a frenzy over his latest outrageous remarks, seeing incipient fascism – even Nazism – in the making.
“Plain folk tend to shrug and say: 'It's just Donald.' He entertains by saying crazy, sometimes stupid things.”
One Twitter/X wag pointed out: "Andrew realises too late that he has supported a maniac for years."
It's certainly a far cry from when Neil was slavering over Trump's "GQ photoshoot" mugshot.
Trump’s comments have left other of his UK cheerleaders in a bit of a spin.
Reform UK have had to cobble together a policy on Ukrainian elections of all things. The party line is now that Zelenskyy is not a dictator but should set a timetable for elections.
How he is to get ballot boxes and those little Ikea pencils to the front line, we believe Nigel Farage and the boys are still figuring out.
