Quintin Jardine's blog

Like many Scots, I woke up this morning to read a hysterical outburst against our First Minister by that clown among clowns, the self-aggrandising Donald Trump.

For non-Scots, this is the story. A few years ago, The Donald showed up in Scotland and announced that he wanted to build a billion-dollar golf resort on a sensitive piece of the Aberdeenshire coastline. He would create, he said ‘The world’s greatest golf resort,’ as if Scotland has no track record or expertise in that area, and as if St Andrews has no claim to filling that slot already. To the embarrassment of some and the annoyance of even more, the red-haired bampot was welcomed and taken seriously by our government. Consent was given eventually for his project, over-riding some serious environmental concerns, and those who argued against it and refused his mighty dollar, were abused, vilified, bullied, and threatened. Whatever The Donald wants, it seems, The Donald gets, and woe betide those who stand in his way.

Yet all along, there were those of us who know the east coast weather all year round and who wondered whether the geniuses who advised our new-found patron had done any sort of research into this aspect. If his exposed new course was to be enclosed in a huge perspex bubble, fair enough. If not, might it not prove to be just a wee bit too wet and breezy for your average multi-millionaire out on a golfing spree?

Doubts began to emerge last June, when The Donald let it be known that while the course would be completed, (in fact, that sort of project cannot be put on hold) the rest of it, the five-star hotel, the villas, Trump Boulevard, the timeshares, and of course the golf academy, would all have to be put on hold because of ‘the global financial crisis’. His announcement was greeted with scepticism,and even a few cries of  ‘Aye sure’. Since then nothing more had been heard until today, when the Great Man turned, without warning, on our First Minister, the man who made him overly welcome to our nation in the first place. His beef? The Scottish Government has been asked to approve a plan for eleven offshore wind turbines which, he claims, will be within sight of his golf resort, and offensive to  the eyes of his wealthy potential investors. That’s it then, folks; Trump doesn’t like it , so it mustn’t happen. In other words The Donald is demanding the right of veto over  Scotland’s renewable energy policy.

I’m not going to quote from his open letter, because it is too stupid and too offensive. It is also a front for the blinding and inevitable truth; the man has realised that his grandiose pipe-dream is destined to be a massive loser, and he has decided to cut his losses and get out, behind the smokescreen of abuse that has been his trade-mark since his arrival on our shores.

For an individual who claims to be such an expert in Scotland’s history, he would do well to consider the fate of Proud Edward’s Army, as he flies off, homeward, to think again.