You don’t need to know any more about Stephen Colbert than that he is an American political broadcaster and satirist who hosts ‘The Late Show’ on the CBS television channel, which makes him something of a US household name. Last week, after Donald Trump had given his embarrassingly rambling non-concession speech in the White House briefing room, Colbert made some headlines himself – not just for the diatribe he delivered, which included calling the US president a ‘fascist’, but for ‘choking up’ (The Hill) as he introduced the item.

“If you did not know that Joe Biden was getting close to...