IT may not be until his memoirs are published that we get to discover how hurt Donald Trump was the other morning when he read how civic Scotland had reacted to his triumph in the US presidential election. This is assuming, of course, that his communications director has appraised him of the chilliness of our political leaders’ responses.

Nicola Sturgeon said: “I hope that president-elect Trump turns out to be a president very different to the kind of candidate he was and reaches out to those who felt vilified by his campaign.” And we already knew what Ruth Davidson thought of Trump. Last year, in a Shakespearian frenzy, she tweeted: “So, twitter, we’re all agreed? Trump’s a clay-brained guts, knotty-pated fool, whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch, right?”

Kezia Dugdale said: “Donald Trump was responsible for a hate-filled campaign that was dominated by lies, misogyny and racism.”

And it’s amazing how tempted you are to forgive the racist, misogynist old sex pest when someone like Patrick Harvie charges in demanding that we all shun the President of the US if he ever again wants to visit his ancestral home. Harvie, incidentally, belongs to an organisation, The National Secularist Society, which in equal, diverse and enlightened Scotland wants to remove the rights of parents to have their children educated according to their religious faith.

The problem with such grandstanding over human rights and inclusiveness, of course, is that if you insist on shouting loudly about these things people will naturally scrutinise the lofty position you have chosen to occupy. Are these values, which we all like to think we hold dear, evenly espoused without fear or favour in all your dealings with global partners?

Let’s consider the report by Human Rights Watch on the status of democracy in China in 2015. “China remains an authoritarian state, one that systematically curtails a wide range of fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion. While there were a few modest positive developments in 2015… the trend for human rights under President Xi Jinping continued in a decidedly negative direction.

“Senior Chinese leaders, perceiving a threat to their power, now explicitly reject the universality of human rights, characterising these ideas as “foreign infiltration,” and penalising those who promote them. Freedoms of expression and religion, already limited, were hit particularly hard in 2015 by several restrictive new measures.”

Extreme physical and psychological torture awaits those plucked off the streets for practicing Falun Gong; others simply ‘disappear’. Yet, the political classes in Scotland have spent so much time recently cosying up to this regime that any day now the Chinese New Year will soon be declared a national holiday here.

The irony of our leaders’ two-tier approach to human rights was revealed this week at Holyrood as all the opposition parties polished their mock outrage at the collapse of a £10bn trade deal with China. This was the same deal that they had criticised when it was announced earlier this year. It seems that expressing opposition to a trade deal on the grounds that one of the companies involved may have a questionable record on human rights is only OK when there is political capital to be had from it.

The same political classes are wont to dip in and out of the geo-political upheaval in the Middle East while failing to say much about the routine enslavement of women and young girls in many Muslim societies. Not a voice has been raised by our political classes about the wholesale cleansing of ancient and minority Christian communities throughout the region. It’s easy, though, to take heroic positions on human rights in the Middle East when you know you’ll never have to commit your country to a mature and proportionate position on the issue.

So, yes, we all know that Trump is the creepy clown who stalks the nightmares of civilised and liberal society and that, yes, we must all rush to show everyone how much we all revile him. So far, though, he hasn’t tortured anyone; slaughtered unsuspecting guests at an Afghan wedding party or sought to imprison people for following their faith. During the presidential election he voiced opinions that suggest he is a racist old bully with a disturbing tendency to demean and dominate women. He is set to lead a divided country but one which has always been united in approving the military invasion of Third World countries; the routine torture of Muslim prisoners and the regular killing of innocent black men by members of their law enforcement community. They buy guns for their children at Christmas.

So forgive me if I don’t sympathise with America’s chocolate-box liberals. It was only a matter of time before someone like Trump happened along. And if it hadn’t been him it would probably have been someone like senator Ted Cruz. He was the man who responded to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei bitter denouncement of America thus: “We may have to help introduce him to the 72 virgins.”

In the months and years ahead mature and sophisticated political leaders will seek to cajole and chivvy President Donald Trump into the ways of diplomatic discourse. They will seek to educate him quietly and to lecture him privately about the need to deploy more proportionate language. They will steer him away from blanket denunciations of entire races and peoples. But they won’t hector him too much because very few of them will not have blood on their hands from all the seedy compromises that their alliances and stratagems periodically demand.

To our political leaders in Scotland I would commend the response of Enda Kenny, the Irish Taoiseach, to Trump’s triumph. “On behalf of the Government and the people of Ireland, I am pleased to offer our sincere congratulations to Donald J Trump on his election as the 45th President of the United States.”

Enda had also previously been critical of him but, like most other political leaders, the Taoiseach had condemned him at a time when he thought there wasn’t a transsexual’s chance in Texas of Trump being elected. Now that President Trump is a reality, the Irish President has moderated his tone. He is the leader of a small country which is still recovering from the economic apocalypse which engulfed his people not very long ago. His voters would never forgive him if he sacrificed lucrative trade deals on the altar of his desire to strike a nice, liberal pose.

Ms Sturgeon should take lessons in grown-up, mature statecraft from a man who really does want to protect his nation’s interests.