Michael Kelly: Trump versus Salmond will run and run

I BET Alex Salmond wishes he had never set eyes on Donald Trump, much less wooed him to bring his golf investment to Scotland.

The American golfer and billionaire, claiming to be wronged, is going to be in the First Minister’s hair for a long, long time.

More than a year ago, on this page, I admired Trump’s bravery in risking a multi-million pound investment to create “the greatest golf course in the world” in the home of golf, which was already strewn with internationally famous courses. For that piece, which I didn’t consider entirely flattering, I received a handwritten note from Donald praising my writing. His admiration did not extend to an invitation to the opening of the course, so I have no way of endorsing or otherwise his opinion, restated this week, about the quality of his links.

I have, on the other hand, no reason to disbelieve his claims about its attraction. His track record proves he can make the right calls when it comes to property development. But I remain sceptical about the financial viability of a resort so difficult to reach, both by the bulk of the UK’s golfing fraternity and by the visitors he hoped to attract from the United States. Will these golfers, who currently fly into Glasgow or Edinburgh to play Troon, Turnberry, Carnoustie, Muirfield and St Andrews, among many others, be prepared to spend the money and time to divert to a new course with no established reputation? That consideration in the context of the continuing desperate state of the world economy would seem to be excellent financial reasons for postponing any further investment in hotels or housing.

Therefore, is the proposed offshore wind farm, which will blot the views from many of his stunning tees, merely a convenient excuse to halt further expenditure in the £750 million venture? It may well be. But that does not necessarily negate Trump’s claims that he received “assurances” from both Jack McConnell when he was first minister and his successor Alex Salmond that no such wind farm would be built. McConnell has gone on record as saying that he gave no guarantees of any kind. It was made clear to Trump in officially recorded conversations that it was “an interesting choice of site”.

With Salmond, you can be less sure. His generosity with the truth – you can get any answer you want – best exemplified in his answers to Andrew Neil in the famous interview on European Union membership legal advice, suggests that Trump might well have mistaken ambivalence for a firm guarantee that the outlook from his fairways would forever be unblemished by 640ft-high turbine towers.

This serious fallout is just another example of how unwise it is of politicians to get too close to powerful players in business. Tony Blair got away with it for a long time with Rupert Murdoch. Gordon Brown didn’t and neither has David Cameron. Business and politics operate in different worlds. One has a straightforward, often blunt way of expressing things, one a much more nuanced vocabulary often seen as designed to mislead. One has a simple set of unchanging goals, one experiences pressures that demand a flexibility that could be seen as betrayal. Thus Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson’s volte-face on more powers for Holyrood has shocked her backers, many of whom have reacted just like Trump to Salmond.

The present case over the Menie estate golf course is, first of all, the clash of two egos. I doubt that you could have an instance of two individuals each so convinced of his own superiority, so adamant that he is right, so determined to win. If you are convinced that the only person you should debate independence with is the Prime Minister and not your fellow Scots, you are going to have little time for an American who (like Scots living in the United States) does not even have a vote.

But, in fairness, Trump’s development has left Salmond facing a genuine dilemma. He, rightly, did want to encourage a large foreign investment and treating an inward investor with enthusiasm does reassure others that they will be welcome in a land where home-grown enterprise is thin on the ground.

On the other hand, everyone, including Trump, must know of the First Minister’s commitment to renewable energy – his only fallback to avoiding power cuts now that his government has eschewed new nuclear generation. Offshore wind shows even more potential than its onshore equivalent, which is already producing significant returns. It follows that he is obliged to promote it at every opportunity. Where Trump has a point is in questioning why it has to be in his eyeline and whether the farm will ever be built. A development off St Andrews Bay would be less visually offensive, given it is not visible from most of the holes on the Old Course. Would a proposal there be approved within 24 hours of the authorities receiving a report from Marine Scotland?

It is right also to wonder whether the funds will be available to make the Aberdeenshire wind farm happen soon? Shetland has planning permission for 300 of what are said to be the most efficient turbines in Europe, yet no-one has come forward with the funding of the interconnector that would transmit the power generated to the mainland.

The First Minster is being hailed for standing up to the “threats and bluster” of much the same kind as he metes out every week in Holyrood as substitutes for factual answers. The question here is not whether Salmond is to be congratulated for standing up to a bully, but what commitments were given by him and what in detail.

This is not the kind of verifiable information that the First Minster likes to give. But if he can, he will undermine Trump’s case. Equally, Trump must produce his evidence or stop shouting.

Given the personalities involved, neither is likely to happen. This is just going to be a long political harangue. However much of a nuisance he thinks he can be, Trump should remember that Salmond is good at politics.