It’s going very well, very well.

Donald Trump, straight-talking disruptor-in-chief, grants an interview to the Sun, a newspaper in so many ways the US president’s natural forum. The interviewer’s 10-minute slot stretches to 28; the interviewee is clearly enjoying himself, and the resulting headlines – “May has wrecked Brexit”, “US trade deal is off” – appear slap-bang in the middle of the prime minister’s grand opening effort to convince him of the contrary.

The insults continued for page after lurid page, including dismissive comments about the prime minister’s new plan for Brexit (“I think the deal is not what the people voted on”); about Theresa May’s conduct of the negotiations (“I actually told Theresa May how to do it, but she didn’t listen to me … she wanted to go a different route”); and – dear, oh dear – about the “very talented guy”, Boris Johnson, who “would be “a great prime minister”, whom he was “surprised and saddened” to see leaving government.

Hey, he was just being honest. Fake news!

The conundrum facing No 10 now is whether and how to respond. The sunnily cautious comments of the foreign office minister, Alan Duncan, on the BBC this morning, suggested that the official decision was to grin and bear it, rather than engage in anything more dramatic.

Probably for reasons to do with known outcomes from descent into wet soil to combat Sus domesticus.