There’s nothing wrong with a bad loser like Donald Trump, Nicola Sturgeon or myself – we get things done

There are more bad losers around than you can imagine. When singer Samantha Atkinson was kicked off The X Factor in favour of joke rapper Honey G, her family set up a petition to get the rapper off the show

U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Delaware, Ohio, (Reuters)

Let’s hear it for bad losers. I’m not supporting Trump, but why the outcry when he dared to say what every truly competitive person thinks deep down? Losing is hard, and not something winners contemplate.

During the debate last week, Trump was asked if he would accept the election result, and replied, “I’m not looking at anything now… I’ll keep you in suspense.” Hillary appeared outraged and declared that “talking down our democracy is horrifying”. Twenty-four hours later, Trump slightly modified his position, having repeatedly declared that the election was “rigged”. He told supporters he would accept the result – if he won!

At least he’s being honest for once. The cult of the good loser sucks – Louis Smith got roundly criticised for crying on the podium in Rio when he won the silver, and was further castigated for not rushing to shake the hand of gold medal winner Max Whitlock. Smith claims they did shake hands, off camera, but it wasn’t captured in the coverage. Whatever – why do we expect athletes to strive to be the best and then when they come second we expect them to be gracious as well? It shouldn’t be a given.

You could argue that Nicola Sturgeon is a bad loser: having lost the Scottish independence vote by a considerable margin, she’s now calling for a re-run to ensure the right terms for her country after Brexit. After the EU referendum, voters who were surprised by the result were asking for a re-run, saying they had “changed their minds”.

There are more bad losers around than you can imagine. When singer Samantha Atkinson was kicked off The X Factor in favour of joke rapper Honey G, her family set up a petition to get the rapper off the show and their girl reinstated – so far it has 15,000 signatures. And surely the worst loser of all time is Kanye West, who stormed the stage when his video didn’t win at the MTV Europe awards in 2006, and then did it again in 2009 when Taylor Swift triumphed over Beyoncé.

Deep down, quite a few of us are really bad losers – me included. When I didn’t win an Emmy for a TV show a while ago, the lucky producer came over and said, “I’m amazed, I think your show was better than ours.” I’m not ashamed to admit I replied: “I agree.”