Trump has left a void that the EU and Britain must fill together | William Keegan

America is in retreat from its underappreciated good works around the world. Europe needs to act - and Brexit only hinders this essential response

In July 1817, Lord Amherst, the leader of a British delegation to China, stopped on his return journey at Saint Helena and met the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon had seldom been out of the news, but Amherst himself was also in the news for having pointedly refused to kowtow when having an audience with the Chinese emperor.