Donald Trump deserves his frosty reception in Scotland (how the bully got his golf course)
Donald Trump deserves his frosty reception in Scotland
Bully-boy antics and broken promises to build the ‘greatest luxury golf resort in the world’ have driven the billionaire’s reputation into the rough
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John and Susie Munro, whoser property borders Donald Trump’s Menie estate golf course. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
As the Donald descended from the steps of Trump Force One and attempted to shield his wayward hair from the easterly winds sweeping across the Tarmac of Aberdeen airport, he would have expected a frosty reception. Trump, ignoring the record-breaking petition calling for him to be banned from the UK for “hate speech”, is in Scotland as part of a whistlestop tour of his two Scottish golf courses. The first port of call will be Turnberry – now renamed Trump Turnberry – after an investment claimed by the Trump Organisation to be £200m. But it is at his Menie estate in Aberdeenshire where the Mexican flags are flying high. Michael Forbes and David Milne, who were among the residents Trump threatened with compulsory purchase orders when they refused to sell him their properties to make way for a luxury golf resort, have hoisted the flags in a show of solidarity with the people of Mexico. Trump, of course, has pledged to build a 2,000-mile wall along the Mexican border “very inexpensively” to stop “rapists and drug dealers” from entering the US if he becomes president. And as the residents of the Menie estate know only too well, Trump has form on walls.
As I documented in my first Trump film, You’ve Been Trumped, at the crack of dawn one morning in 2010, the billionaire’s bulldozers sprang into action and began dumping thousands of tons of earth around the homes of local residents Susan Munro and David Milne, after the tycoon had branded their houses ugly. Trump’s builders (who had no planning permission for these works, according to the residents) had already been caught on camera, burying trees in an enormous hole next to the mounds of earth piled up to shield Forbes’s farm from the view of Trump’s golfers. Trump had blasted Forbes on national television for “living like a pig” and his working farm “a pigsty”.
In many ways, Trump’s loss-making development at the Menie estate is a microcosm of what’s been going on during his run for the White House. When Trump pledged to be the “jobs president”, Scots were quick to remember his broken promises on jobs. Trump claimed he would create 6,000 jobs through his golf course resort and spend £1bn building the “greatest luxury golf resort in the world”. In fact, no “resort” was ever built. Around 100 jobs have been created on the Menie estate and a single golf course is in operation, along with a granite-clad clubhouse. It is estimated he has spent less than 5% of the original investment pledged. Plans for a second golf course have yet to materialise – much to the relief of local residents who fear it would destroy another stretch of wild dunes.
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The non-partisan website PolitiFact has determined that Trump’s campaign statements are riddled with an astounding number of outright falsehoods. That’s hardly news to Forbes, who has the phrase “NO MORE TRUMP LIES” daubed on one of his farm sheds. Forbes has watched for more than a decade as the Trump claims and promises have come to nothing. The 450-bedroom hotel has never been built. The 1,500 houses failed to materialise. Instead a golf course for the wealthy now stands between him and his salmon fishing boat, with Forbes complaining he is unable to access the beach to fish. Trump claimed his Menie estate golf course would be “environmentally perfect”. But in fact it destroyed the ability of the sand dunes to move and shift naturally, something that was highlighted by every credible environmental group in the land when his plans were first submitted.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/donald-trump-frosty-reception-scotland-broken-promises-golf