My American friends are asking me about President Trumps’s observation that the British ‘like him’. I regret this is quite unfounded. The explanation for this canard is that Trump is pronoid. Pronoid is the opposite of paranoid. A paranoid person thinks, without any basis in reality, that everybody is out to get them. A pronoid person is someone who thinks, without any basis in reality, that everybody likes them. The fact is that the British loathe Donald Trump. This is because he is the polar opposite of a ‘ Gentleman ’, who has qualities the British admire. A fine example is Gareth Southgate. To the British, a ‘ Gentleman ’ is a man who is modest, well-mannered, self deprecating, quietly intelligent, considerate of other people’s feeling, and well-informed. He is not vulgar, inflated, vain, boastful, noisily ignorant, sleazy and common as muck. I hope this clears up any confusion.
John Cleese
