What a week it’s been for those of us who delight in upsetting the apple-cart. The phoney war is over. The status quo is as dead as Status Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt, whose funeral took place on Thursday.

First, Theresa May set out her Brexit plan in robust terms that even Nigel Farage would find hard to fault. Then yesterday, Donald Trump took the oath as the 45th President of the United States, the orange glow of his complexion shining like a Belisha beacon.

Trump certainly took no prisoners in his magnetic inauguration speech, promising his adoring supporters: ‘We are transferring power from Washington D.C. and giving it back to you, the people. For too long a small group in our nation’s capital have reaped the rewards of government while the people bore the costs.’

Seven short months ago, this explosive series of events seemed the remotest of possibilities. All the polls pointed to Britain voting to remain in the European Union, shackled to a sclerotic, corrupt bureaucracy and browbeaten by Project Fear.

Yesterday, Donald Trump took the oath as the 45th President of the United States, the orange glow of his complexion shining like a Belisha beacon

Seven short months ago, this explosive series of events seemed the remotest of possibilities

Most pundits — me included — were still convinced that Americans would cling to nurse Hillary Clinton rather than elect a maverick reality TV star and property developer as their Commander-in-Chief.

Despite the fact the dreadful, gurning harridan Hillary was eminently beatable, few thought that The Donald would prove to be her nemesis. How wrong we all were.

And in the words of the classic Motown anthem: How Sweet It Is.

Curiously enough, it was during a visit to Detroit in July, a few days after the earth-shattering Brexit vote, that I began to suspect that Trump might be in with a realistic shout of winning. Everyone I met wanted to talk about our decision to quit the EU. They all agreed that the U.S. could do with a similar shock to the system.

Rust-belt cities like Detroit have been condemned to decades of economic decline, while the politicians in Washington obsessed over global warming and gender-neutral toilets. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

My extended family worked in the motor industry and first my uncle and aunt, in the Sixties, then my mum, dad and sister, in the Seventies, were all transplanted to Detroit, where some of them still live.

Most pundits — me included — were still convinced that Americans would cling to nurse Hillary Clinton rather than elect a maverick reality TV star

Despite the fact the dreadful, gurning harridan Hillary was eminently beatable, few thought that The Donald would prove to be her nemesis. How wrong we all were

A bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Washington, DC

Once the richest city in America, Detroit is now a basket case, doing its best to rebuild in adverse economic circumstances. Motown Records decamped to California decades ago.

For all Barack Obama’s posturing, he has done nothing to alleviate the collapse of manufacturing and the transfer of blue-collar jobs to low-wage economies abroad. Uncontrolled immigration skewed the labour market and suppressed incomes. Obama’s ambitious ‘affordable’ healthcare plan has proved costly and bureaucratic.

The parallels with Britain’s Labour-run Northern industrial cities are glaringly obvious. And just as traditional Labour voters exacted their revenge by voting for Brexit, those the Democrats had taken for granted turned to Trump.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The election of America’s first black president was a cause for celebration and optimism — even among many of those who voted against him.

Of course, he could never have lived up to the biblical rhetoric peddled in his acceptance speech in 2008: ‘Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment . . . when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal . . .’

But we made allowances for the bombast, for all the right reasons. I’ve been looking back at what I wrote on inauguration day 2009. This really was history in the making.

Though I’ve been in journalism all my life, I thoroughly approve of Trump’s undisguised contempt for the White House Press Corps

Trump certainly took no prisoners in his magnetic inauguration speech, promising his adoring supporters: ‘We are transferring power from Washington D.C. and giving it back to you, the people'

When I first visited Detroit in 1969 as a 15-year-old schoolboy, they’d just put a man on the moon but it was inconceivable that the U.S. could ever have a black President.

The embers of the race riots which swept the country were still smouldering and the National Guard was being sent into inner cities and university campuses to crush demonstrations in favour of civil rights and against the Vietnam War.

As Obama himself observed, within living memory a man like him wouldn’t even have been served in a restaurant in Washington — let alone ascended to the highest office in the land.

So everyone can be forgiven for hoping against hope that Obama really could heal the racial and social divisions that had scarred America since her foundation as an independent nation.

My own reservations, expressed in this newspaper, were that he could never rise to the task and instead would merely prove to be America’s answer to Tony Blair — a vain showman with an appetite for empty promises, grandstanding and rock-star idolatry.

Sadly, that’s how it turned out. Instead of uniting the nation, Obama chose to govern as the most partisan president of modern times. Far from healing the racial divide, his policies accentuated it — supporting militant, anti-police groups such as Black Lives Matter.

On the world stage, Obama proved weak, appeasing America’s enemies and betraying her allies, complacently allowing the rise of ISIS and agreeing a foolish treaty which will enable Iran, the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, to re-establish a nuclear weapons programme.

Come the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton offered more of the same. So it’s hardly surprising that voters sought out an alternative.

On the world stage, Obama proved weak, appeasing America’s enemies and betraying her allies

When he decided to run for office, he was widely considered a joke. I’m still not convinced that even he ever thought he’d win the Republican nomination

Step forward Donald J. Trump.

When he decided to run for office, he was widely considered a joke. I’m still not convinced that even he ever thought he’d win the Republican nomination, let alone the Presidency. During the first primary debate, he made a crass remark about a female TV presenter. But rather than apologise, he carried on in the same vein.

The more outspoken he was, the more Joe Six Pack and the maidens of Middle America warmed to him. Last week, he was still at it, monstering a self-important CNN correspondent for spreading unverified reports of alleged revolting behaviour in a Russian hotel room.

Though I’ve been in journalism all my life, I thoroughly approve of Trump’s undisguised contempt for the White House Press Corps, an even more pompous gang of preening stenographers than our own Boys In The Bubble at Westminster.

The mainstream media in America set out to destroy Trump. Yet under Obama they have been pliant cheerleaders, content to take dictation.

Why should Trump put up with it? His retaliation has been called ‘un-Presidential’. But there’s a reason The Donald keeps one of boxer Mike Tyson’s belts in his office.

The mainstream media in America set out to destroy Trump. Why should he put up with it?

Trump refuses to play by the usual rules, to accept his opponents’ game-plan. He adopts the Tyson approach: ‘Everyone’s got a game-plan until you punch them in the mouth.’

There will be plenty of bleeding gums in Washington over the next few weeks, as Trump hits the ground running — signing executive orders overturning Obamacare, scrapping the ‘green’ energy agenda and tackling illegal immigration.

Ultimately, he’ll be judged on whether he lowers taxes, creates millions of new jobs and rebuilds America’s crumbling public infrastructure. That’s the punt the American people have taken, albeit reluctantly in many cases.

My sister, a U.S. citizen, says that she hesitated before voting for Trump. She was well aware of his flaws, but the alternative was too horrible to contemplate. And if it all went wrong, he’d only be there for four years.

When she admitted it in the office the next day, most of her colleagues — largely dynamic 20-somethings in the financial services sector — said they’d taken the same gamble. If it all goes right, then maybe Trump really will make America great again.

His oratory can sound a bit like a David Brent motivation session — but he talks in a straightforward, no-bull fashion which ordinary people understand. Not for him the nuanced bloviation beloved of the political class.

Yesterday, in a message that resonated across the nation, he said bluntly: ‘The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and redistributed all over the world. But that is the past. We are looking only to the future. America will start winning again, winning like never before.’

So can he live up to his promises, some would say ‘boasts’? Trump has made many impressive appointments to his cabinet, bringing in a wealth of real-world experience.

After Theresa May set out her Brexit plan in robust terms that even Nigel Farage would find hard to fault, this

Needless to say, the puffed-up political establishment are doing all they can to disrupt a smooth transition of power.

But they should be under no illusion. There’s a new sheriff in town — and one who fires from the hip.

For too long, conservatives have cowered in the face of attacks from self-appointed ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ — just as the Tories in Britain went out of their way to adopt the ‘social justice’ agenda of the Left, simply to prove they weren’t ‘nasty’.

That’s how they ended up spending more time on transgender rights than transatlantic trade deals.

One of the great joys of watching the unlikely rise of The Donald has been witnessing the deranged reaction of his opponents, who have behaved exactly like the hysterical Remain camp at home.

They still can’t accept that they lost and will do everything in their power to prevent Trump (and Brexit) succeeding. But they are doomed to failure.

A phalanx of Democratic politicians boycotted the inauguration, in a playground gesture of dissent. Like our own Remoaners, they view everything with which they disagree as ‘illegitimate’ or ‘undemocratic’.

But as Rhett Butler said in Gone With The Wind, frankly Trump doesn’t give a damn. Why should he? He’s got the conch.

Look, I’m no great admirer of the Trump style, I’m not blind to his less than savoury behaviour, but I love what he represents — the triumph of decent Middle America over the platitudinous political elite, just as Brexit was an overdue revolt against the sanctimonious consensus.

I was delighted to see that Sam Moore refused to bow to pressure and accepted an invitation to perform at Trump’s victory parade

OK, so 50 Left-wing senators and congressmen were missing at the Capitol yesterday. But their pathetic absence was more than compensated for by Bikers For Trump, a rolling thunder review of men of a certain age on Harley-Davidsons demonstrating their support for the new world order.

The Bikers are part of the ‘basket of deplorables’ which Hillary Clinton slandered during the campaign — a comment which may well have helped seal her fate.

You can’t keep telling half the population they’re the scum of the earth and still expect to win their hearts and minds. It’s a lesson which our more extreme Remainers haven’t yet absorbed.

Trump’s detractors squeal about ‘division’, but no President has proved more divisive than their darling Barack Obama.

Do the celebs who have spat the dummy over Trump have any idea how ridiculous they are?

I was delighted to see that Sam Moore — one half of Sam and Dave, the world’s greatest double act, if you don’t count Morecambe and Wise — refused to bow to pressure and accepted an invitation to perform at Trump’s victory parade.

Hold on, Donald, I’m coming.

In stark contrast, Bruce Springsteen, who coincidentally recorded a duet with Sam Moore a couple of years ago, sings about America as a Land Of Hope And Dreams, yet holds beneath contempt those who disagree with his political views (millions of whom have bought his records, attended his concerts and made him rich).

Like the Remainers, Broooce believes the plebs are too stupid to think for themselves and have been swayed by evil Right-wingers and ‘fake news’. I wonder what Bikers For Trump make of Bruce these days. It’s a town full of losers, and they’re pulling out of here to win.

And while we’re talking rock’n’roll, on the night before the inauguration, I went to see Felix Cavaliere, one of the original Young Rascals, the first white soul band signed to Atlantic Records. When he launched into his fabulous million-selling hit It’s A Beautiful Morning, the audience lifted the roof. A hairs on the back of the neck moment.

To me, it echoed Ronald Reagan’s famous ‘It’s morning in America’ inauguration speech. Suddenly, everything seems possible.

Which brings us back to Blighty and Brexit. We may well be some way from seeing a Mods For May motorcade rolling down Whitehall, middle-aged men in World Cup Willie parkas and Union Jack jackets on Lambretta and Vespa scooters. But Mother Theresa demonstrated in no uncertain terms this week that the world has changed. Brexit does mean Brexit.

Mrs May's speech at Lancaster House has (for now) banished any misgivings I may have had, especially the part about no deal being better for Britain than a bad deal

Frankly, until now I have feared she might try to fudge it. After all, she was in the Remain camp and, although she spent most of the referendum campaign hiding behind the sofa, as Home Secretary she chipped into Project Fear — warning that Britain would be less safe from terrorism outside the EU.

Her speech at Lancaster House has (for now) banished any misgivings I may have had, especially the part about no deal being better for Britain than a bad deal. We must always be ready to walk away rather than submit to blackmail.

Our hand has been immeasurably strengthened by President Trump, an Anglophile who has already made it clear that Britain will be at the front of the queue when it comes to striking a post-Brexit trade deal.

As he emphasised yesterday: ‘We will reinforce old alliances.’ Music to our ears.

Unlike the ‘sophisticates’ who make everything about themselves and their own feelings, and are convinced that Trump will be a disaster and trigger a nuclear holocaust, I’m both excited and optimistic about the Trump presidency.

The impact it will have on Britain as we seek to re-establish our historical, buccaneering global role — especially forging new links with the English speaking world and the Commonwealth countries we so shamefully neglected when we got into bed with our EU ‘partners’ — will be, as Trump himself might say, tremendous.

The arrival of perma-tanned Donald J. Trump in the White House is the best thing that’s happened to Britain since the Americans entered World War II. No more status quo. No more EU. We’re rocking all over the world.

Bigly. The future’s bright, the future’s orange.