AS far as campaign bus statements go, it's an all-encompassing cracker.

"No Malarkey!" runs the side of US Presidential hopeful Joe Biden's bus. Unlike claimed statements of fact - "We send the EU £350 million a week" - malarkey is entirely subjective.

It's a heartening promise to wipe out the relentless nonsense blighting modern politics and yet it's entirely unmeasurable. One man's malarkey is another man's leader of the free world.

While we could do with a good sight less malarkey, the expectation of yet more meaningless nonsense is the one constant the electorate has to cling to on both sides of the pond, and Mr Biden's political rival has delivered predictable lowlights at this week's NATO summit.

Small minded big baby Donald Trump stropped off home after the other kids were mean to him. While kind hands and kind words should be the order of the day at any self-respecting nursery, it's difficult to keep a straight face while trying to give the bullies a row in this instance.

Mr Trump's fellow world leaders - plus, bizarrely, Princess Anne, who's soaring in the opinion polls thanks to the work of an actress playing a fictional version of her - were caught on hot-mic sharing an indiscreet giggle over his behaviour.

Who can blame them, after the trials they had endured prior to that point?

It was the second such viral clip from Tuesday's Buck House reception, the first being a tableau interpreted as the Queen calling Princess Anne over to greet Trump only for Anne to give a Gallic shrug in reply. This turned out not to have been the case but we see what we want to see these days and what we want to see is the leader of the free world and the sovereign being cheeked by a very naughty princess. Just a little malarkey.

Emmanuel Macron, during a press conference with Trump, struggled to maintain diplomacy as the American Trumpsplained Isis. "Let's be serious," the French president said, ditching his interpreter to make the message clearer.

Immediately prior to this, Trump had been havering on about the origin of Isis members. "Would you like some nice Isis fighters?," he whittered to Macron. "I can give them to you. You can take everyone you can."

Macron then went on to caution Trump against "naivete" in dealings with Russia. Bit late for that, non?

At least in the protective shell of the White House there is some cover for Trump's worst behaviour but on the world stage he is entirely vulnerable, as shown by the stream of consciousness nonsense coming from his pre-strop press conferences.

Macron clearly is in no mood for malarkey either, having also given a blunt interview to the Economist in which he charged NATO with suffering from "brain death". Dr Macron's diagnosis is certainly not being reversed by the actions of Trump, who routinely criticises the alliance and praises its main adversary, Russia.

The American president very much appears to misunderstand how NATO is funded and failed to defer to the organisation when withdrawing US troops from Syria.

Justin Trudeau was also, during a press conference with Trump, forced to give the playground pariah a schooling in Canada's financial and military contributions to international security.

It's no wonder, by the time of a Buckingham Palace soiree, that the lads were keen to let off steam behind Trump's back and so there we had it, the now infamous recording of Trudeau mocking his American colleague.

"You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor," the Canadian Prime Minister said of Trump's press conference, as the Princess Royal looked gleeful and Macron bounced on his toes.

Oh, and while Boris Johnson squatted at the side trying to ingratiate himself with the cool gang.

All this malarkey took the heat off Boris Johnson, who, in the main, seemed to obey his handler's instructions to stay out of trouble.

He did a decent enough job until a press conference in which he was asked about the unfortunate scenes with Trudeau and Macron. The equivalent of a child feigning ignorance of a raided cookie jar while smothered in crumbs, our prime minister opted for flat denial.

"I don’t know where that’s come from." It's on video, Mr Johnson. "That’s complete nonsense." It's not, Prime Minister.

Having them in the same space gives another opportunity to marvel at the similarities between Johnson and Trump, like the twins from The Shining but with small man syndrome and access to nuclear weapons.

One wonders if they might fare better should the leaders debate or NATO talks be run in more a Family Fortunes style. The poor pups could have their hands held, Trump by his daughter Ivanka and Johnson by his dear papa Stanley, while trying to hum and haw their way through burning topical issues. "Name something usually done in the dark." "Name something you can do in a lift." More their level.

And how did Trump respond to being mocked by his pals? "Well, he’s two-faced," he said of Trudeau, and followed up later with the statesmanlike, "That was funny when I said that guy was two-faced."

Trump's long-running promise has been to cease any international mockery of the United States, having said "the entire world was laughing and taking advantage of us." Well, look who's laughing now. Everyone.

Couldn't they have laughed sooner? The unfettered disdain shown to Trump this week puts him in uncharted waters. The man who seems himself as a buff, toned heavyweight, an outsider who fought his way to heart of American politics, thrives on claiming he's a secret wheeler dealer. Finally a taste of being frozen out.

Trudeau claimed that jaws dropped not because Trump had blundered but because he had made a surprise appropriate announcement, namely to hold the next G7 summit at Camp David, rather than at his Miami golf resort.

That's where we are now. Shock and indiscretion prompted by the United States president doing the right thing.

"No malarkey" may turn out to be the biggest bus campaign claim of the lot.