Comment: Twists and turns at the White House seem too far fetched for TV

​This week's twists included the departure of Elon Musk to his ailing Tesla car business and the one no-one saw coming – a New York court declaring the Trump tariffs illegal.

The grounds were that they represent a president using claims of a 'state of emergency' existing to allow him to act to impose taxes that hit consumers and businesses. This is just the start of a legal battle that will be a big pay day for lawyers and which will heap confusion on top of an already complex global situation.

With tariffs suspended while the court process continues businesses will be flat out to get stocks into America.

Countries rushing to beg 'the Donald' for deals will be cancelling their visits, as opinion swings towards tariffs being yet another example of Trump attempting to bully others publicly to boost his ego and profile with his supporters.

But even those supporters are beginning to realise tariffs are ultimately paid for by consumers via higher prices with Amazon or on supermarket shelves.

Trump now has no successes to show for 100 days in power; Musk failed to deliver promised government efficiencies; peace in 24 hours promised for Ukraine has come to nothing and his Middle East peace plans have stalled. Now the tariffs, already mostly suspended, are beginning to fall apart.

Common sense would be to seek conciliation and more realistic plans, but that thinking is not part of the Trump DNA. Notoriously thick skinned, Trump believes the EU was not paying sufficient respect, so he threatened a 50 per cent import tariff. This did not have the drastic impact on markets of previous threats – the boy crying wolf adage now firmly in place.

To the credit of the EU and its European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen in particular, it acted calmly to Trump's threats.

It made clear it would not be bullied and would hit back just as hard or harder if forced to do so, but for now preferred diplomacy.

Unlike others there was no rush to Washington to create a PR opportunity for Trump to indulge in bullying in front of the media in the White House.

The EU recognises that the best way to stand up to a bully is to confront them – safe in the knowledge that with 27 member states it is a major global economy and a massive market for American companies. Back home politics for the government have been shifted by its disastrous performance in the English local elections.

Just ten months from a big general election victory, based not on its popularity but the deep unpopularity of the Conservatives, it has lost support from its traditional voters.

It knows the decision to all but scrap winter fuel payments was a disastrous own goal that delivered little in financial savings. It and the two child cap on welfare payments are now likely to go. That will be expensive, but the decision is all about politics and not the state of a still ailing economy. This raises questions about another financial policy where the government was morally and economically wrong. That is the anti-farm families change to inheritance tax and agricultural property relief.

Like the winter fuel payment cut this will yield little, but the chances of it being changed are probably now even worse this side of a general election.

The government cannot be seen to back down on every unpopular financial decision.

Decisions on the two more political issues will be a line in the sand and it will dig to protect the Chancellor.

As an issue APR does not have sufficient public opinion against it to secure a change.

To that end opponents got it wrong in pressing for the plan to be scrapped.

They should have instead highlighted that it is wrong for the truly wealthy to use APR for tax avoidance and made a strong case to protect family farms with a realistic exemption figure – say £4 million – and no discounts beyond that.

This would have had moral legs as an argument and could have won out in the court of public opinion, which is the forum forcing the other changes onto the government.