The adage ‘when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold' was first coined during the Wall Street crash of 1929.

‘Sneezing' is hardly the word that most people would use to describe Donald Trump's behaviour since he returned to the White House but it remains true that, because of its economic and political weight, policy change in the US for good or ill has consequences for us all. Local government in our country is not going to be immune from that.