All of us who have fought elections know to our cost about leaked emails, embarrassing events in the past, and unfortunate statements we regret.

Americans have littered their presidential campaigns and presidencies with comments they regretted, from Gerald Ford saying there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe in 1976, to Ronald Reagan joking about bombing Russia when he didn’t know the microphone was on, to George W Bush saying he had been “misunderestimated”.

Such moments have become a normal part of a vigorous campaign under intense pressure and scrutiny, and Donald Trump no doubt hopes that his filmed comments about how to treat women will be seen in that light. These, he says, were just “locker-room banter”, and do not represent what he is really like.

Of course, someone’s private comments do tell us a lot about their character – revealing in this case an arrogant and vulgar braggart of a man, totally lacking the dignity or demeanour to be head of state of one of the greatest nations on earth. And that’s even without taking any of his policies into account.