Today marks the start of a new chapter for the United States of America and the rest of the world.
Joe Biden will be officially sworn in as the country’s 46th president and formally end Donald Trump’s spell of power in the Oval Office.
Many people predicted that New York property developer and sometime reality TV star Trump would be a disaster as president. They were right.
Trump has alienated American allies around the world with his crass and boorish behaviour.
He has threatened to rip up long-held conventions which have largely kept the peace for the last 70 years.
Trump has dismissed the growing threat of climate change and reversed years of patient hard work which could have helped tackle it.
He demonised immigrants and pandered to racism, stoking hate that erupted in Washington DC just two weeks ago.
He lied his way through four years to suit his own purposes.
The damage Trump has done to public office – and the behaviour we expect from our elected representatives – is too colossal to fully comprehend at this moment.
Despite all of this, he has built a mass following of supporters who will ignore any criticism of their leader.
We must now hope that with the end of Trump, we will see the end of Trumpism.
What the worst president in US history stood for may be more difficult to get rid of than the man himself.
Good luck, Joe Biden. It looks like you’re going to need it.
Brexit is biting in fish market
Europe’s largest fish market should be teeming with activity.
But the vast site in Peterhead looks in pictures to be all but abandoned, which should shame Tory Brexiteers.
The cavernous building has room for thousands of boxes of fish.
The pandemic is having an impact but since Brexit really kicked in, boats are tied up, exports are rotting at the Border and livelihoods are under siege.
The people of the north-east, like the rest of the country, were told to look forward to a “sea of opportunity”.
So far, it’s been a dismal return for a long, painful war of attrition ultimately won by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.
It won’t just be the fishing industry that will suffer from the terms of the Tories’ trade deal with the EU.
For the people who depend on doing business with our European neighbours, all the promises made sound empty – sadly, much like Peterhead fish market.
