Leafy Middle England

What do you do when a racist, sexist, anti-environment, family-destroying sociopath turns up on your patch? Model good behaviour while he tramples on you? Tell him all people are welcome but his vicious, selfish policies are not? Ignore him and hope that hurts his fragile, over-sized, attention-seeking ego?

I'd vote for ignoring him, but that's not possible when our 'leaders' host a 'non-state' visit complete with banquet at the grandest non-royal palace in the country and a musical welcome from the red-and-busby bands of the Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards.

So out we went, to line the road through Woodstock with banners and chants, to shout 'Shame on you,' at the colluder-diners hiding behind dark glass in their black limousines, to shake our fists at Trump's hovering helicopter and to try to wrest back some sense of control for ourselves.

There were some fun touches, including a bicycle convoy with placards who cycled slowly north past the palace gates to the far end of the protest, turned round and cycled south to the roundabout, turned round and cycled north... for about 90 minutes. A good number of the delayed Friday cars heading home tooted their horns in support. 

The only irritation I saw came from the driver of a dignitary-bus trying to overtake. The cyclists surrounded it and cycled as slowly as is possible without falling off while the police, out in amiable force (Thames Valley, Hampshire, Kent...) watched but did not intervene (extra). After reading Kendall's reports of the vicious policing in Portland, I was impressed by the strong demonstration of 'policing by consent': whenever protesters wanted to cross the road, the police stopped the traffic; when a large vehicle approached, the police asked - not ordered - us to move off the road onto the pavement; to speak to the person sitting on the pavement whose legs were in the road, the police officer crouched down to her level.

Best of all was when an officer on the passenger side of the police van gave us all a big grin and a thumbs-up as he passed.

There are lots of stereotypes - privileged, entitled, wealthy - about the part of the country that I live in and although it is more complicated than that they are rooted in reality. This was a bunch of mostly white, mostly middle class, mostly well-educated people. Hey, Trump, even we despise you.