Doused in milkshake by a mob chanting 'Nazi-scum', a middle-aged man is led away by police for his own protection. His crime – to express words of welcome for the President of the USA.
This was the scene beneath the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square yesterday just a couple of hundred yards from the room where Donald Trump and the Prime Minister were holding talks on the second day of the President's state visit.
Outside, a smaller-than-expected 'Stop Trump' demonstration was not in the mood to hear dissenting voices. Moments earlier, the same man had been heard telling protesters that Mr Trump 'speaks the truth' about Brexit.
A Trump supporter had milkshake thrown at him by a baying mob in London yesterday
Oops. This did not go down well with a crowd who had just been wildly cheering Jeremy Corbyn as he accused Mr Trump of 'Islamophobia' for criticising the (Muslim) Mayor of London during Ramadan. There was similarly enthusiastic applause for Green Party MP Caroline Lucas as she attacked Britain for 'pimping the Royal Family' on Mr Trump's behalf. The Scottish Nationalists' Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, even accused Mr Trump of 'betraying' his Scottish ancestors with his policies on immigration.
Welcome to the dizzying heights of the moral high ground as this grand coalition of the righteous gathered yesterday to heap abuse on the leader of the free world.
In the event, however, it was all as underwhelming as the weather.
What had been grossly over-hyped as a 'carnival of resistance' turned out to be a rain-soaked exercise in adolescent raspberry-blowing.
A 16ft schoolboy Trump sat astride a lavatory at one end of Whitehall while an inflatable nappy-wearing Trump barely got off the ground at the other. In between these two satirical masterpieces, a crowd – which had been forecast to exceed 250,000 but barely mustered five figures – heard a succession of Left-wing activists repeat the usual charge sheet against Mr Trump.
A supporter of President Trump gets 'milkshaked' as fights break out at anti-Trump protests in central London
A pro-U.S. President Donald Trump supporter is pushed by anti-Trump demonstrators during a rally against Trump
Some threw in a few choice expletives to raise a cheer and show how, like, really angry they were.
Many expressed their outrage that Mr Trump should be on friendly terms with Brexiteering villains like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.
Brexit, it transpired, was the reason why many of this lot had turned up yesterday. The blue-and-yellow army of shouty Remainer ultras haven't had a good shriek outside Parliament for some months now. The presence of Brexit-loving Mr Trump was the perfect excuse for a reunion.
Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry went as far as suggesting some sort of post-imperial intervention at the White House as she delivered a stern warning to Mr Trump: 'We are not going to allow you to be the representative of the United States that we believe in!' George III and his ministers tried something similar back in 1776, Emily, and that did not end well. But then there has always been something distinctly vice-regal about Lady Nugee (to give Miss Thornberry her correct title).
How infuriating for her and the rest of the anti-Trump coalition that everything inside the rocket-proof security cordon seemed to be going so well. Following on from Monday's spectacular events at Buckingham Palace, the bilateral glow remained undimmed yesterday. Even Theresa May appeared to be having a lovely time.
The man found himself in the middle of an angry mob yesterday afternoon at the rally
Here on the outside, however, the atmosphere was sour and spiteful. Those politicians, including the leaders of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP plus the Speaker of the Commons – who had made a point of snubbing our most powerful ally, have been left looking naive and unprofessional.
None could produce a coherent explanation for their willingness to embrace non-democratic state visitors, such as the President of China, while ostracising the elected President of the USA.
The irony was
