EVEN by his standards, yesterday was a crazy wind-up day for President Donald Trump who managed to insult and annoy everyone from Battersea to Botswana by way of Haiti and was even called a racist by the United Nations.

First the good news: Trump will not be visiting the UK next month to officially open the new American Embassy in Battersea, London. He has pulled out of the visit because according to him, selling off the old building in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, and moving to Battersea was a “bad deal” by his predecessor Barack Obama — except that it was Republican President George W Bush who signed off on the project in 2008.

Now the bad news: he has accepted the invitation for a state visit to Britain, though where and when is still not known and Downing Street wasn’t saying last night.

Most seriously for him, Trump was quoted as saying at a meeting about immigration with bipartisan senators at the White House that Haiti, El Salvador and non-specified African nations were “shithole countries”.

They had been discussing the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) scheme — Trump wants to end this Obama protection scheme and start deporting people who were brought to the USA illegally as children — but perhaps they should have been talking about Second Childhood for Presidents after he let rip with a potty mouthed insult.

The son of a ‘dirt poor’ — his description — Scottish immigrant mother singled out Haiti, questioning why Haitians were needed in the USA, then added in El Salvador and Africans generally and suggested American needed more people from Norway. As per usual, Trump denied saying it. He tweeted: “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.

“What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made — a big setback for DACA!”

Democrat senator Dick Durbin was at the meeting and was having none of Trump’s denials — significantly the White House press office would not outrightly deny Durbin’s claims.

Durbin said that Trump stated: “‘Haitians. Do we need more Haitians?’ Then he went on and started to describe the immigration from Africa that was being protected in this bipartisan measure.

“That’s when he used these vile and vulgar comments, calling the nations they come from ‘shitholes.’ The exact word used by the president. Not just once but repeatedly. That was the nature of this conversation.”

Durbin later told reporters he had not seen a single news report about the President’s words that was false. “I’ve not read one of them that’s inaccurate,” Durbin said. “He said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly.”

“I cannot believe that in the history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday.”

The Speaker of the House, top Republican Paul Ryan, said the comments had been “unfortunate” and “unhelpful”.

International reaction was full of utter fury. The Government of Botswana summoned their US ambassador to “express its displeasure” at what it called “highly irresponsible, reprehensible and racist” comments. It asked the ambassador “to clarify if Botswana is regarded as a ‘shithole’ country given that there are Botswana nationals residing in the US”.

The African Union said it was “alarmed” by Trump’s statements and Haiti’s Ambassador to the US Paul Altidor told the BBC the idea that “we’re simply immigrants who come here to take advantage of the US” is wrong.

UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said the comments were “shocking and shameful”, adding: “I’m sorry but there is no other word for this but racist”.

Later, as he signed the proclamation of the Martin Luther King Jnr memorial holiday, Trump refused to answer reporters’ questions about his “shithole” statements.

In a clear case of irony bypass, Trump said about King: “Today we celebrate Dr. King for standing up for self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the colour of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.”

Meanwhile in London there was anger and rancour after Trump tweeted: “Reason I cancelled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for “peanuts,” only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO.”

The Labour MP for Battersea, Marsha de Cordova, described Trump’s excuse as “embarrassing”.

She said: “This morning’s announcement by Trump that he will not be coming to Battersea to open the American Embassy is a welcome one. I cannot think of anyone in my lifetime more unfit to hold high office.

“To make claims about the location, when this part of Battersea is 15 minutes from Parliament, is an embarrassing excuse.

“It is obvious he is not coming to London because he is scared.

“He knows that thousands of Londoners would take to the streets to protest against his racist and misogynist politics.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “It appears that President Trump got the message from the many Londoners find his policies and actions the polar opposite of our city’s values.”

This provoked a response from Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who tweeted: “We will not allow US-UK relations to be endangered by some puffed up pompous popinjay in City Hall.”

Isn’t that what he used to be?