NIGEL Farage wants to put a County Durham man out of a job – and the soon-to-be most powerful politician in the world supports the move.

US president-elect Donald Trump has suggested that Mr Farage should be the UK’s ambassador to the US.

The job is currently done by Durham University graduate Sir Kim Darroch, who comes from the former North West Durham pit town of South Stanley.

It is unprecedented for an incoming US president to call for a world leader to appoint an opposing party leader as ambassador, and the statement puts Theresa May in a difficult position. Mr Farage claimed he had not been expecting the message of support but said it was a signal that Downing Street needed to change its thinking about him.

Does Mrs May brush the comments aside or would it be a tactical masterstroke to bring the Ukip rabble rouser under her wing and rob his party of their figurehead in the process?

The role of UK ambassador to the US is among the most prestigious in the diplomatic service. Sir Kim is a highly-regarded diplomat who joined the foreign office straight from university. In many ways he epitomises the kind of well-qualified, career bureaucrat so despised by Mr Farage.

The Ukip leader has no diplomatic experience, has seven times failed to win a seat in Parliament, but worked hard to align himself with Mr Trump during the US election campaign.

Mr Trump knows that post-Brexit Britain is keen to strike new trade deals with the US and is clearly throwing his weight around in the wake of his shock victory, but that should play no part in who the British people or their government chooses to represent them.

If Mr Trump is the great Anglophile he purports to be then he should respect the way we do things over here.