Look on the bright side of life, Donald

A watchdog has dismissed claims by tycoon Donald Trump that a tweet posted by the leader of the Scottish Green Party was “blasphemous”.

The American billionaire lodged an official complaint with the Public Standards Commissioner for Scotland following a posting by Patrick Harvie using a still from Monty Python’s Life of Brian to lampoon the tycoon.

Mr Trump had given evidence at the Holyrood parliament’s economy, energy and tourism committee about his opposition to wind turbine developments around Scotland’s coast.

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During the hearing Mr Trump was challenged to provide the “empirical evidence” that would show wind farms would result in the destruction of Scotland. “I am the evidence,” he said.

Following the hearing, Mr Harvie posted a picture of the crucifixion scene from Life of Brian on his Twitter page with speech bubbles quoting Mr Trump’s catchphrase from the hearing. The posting prompted Mr Trump’s lawyers to complain to the public services watchdog that Mr Harvie had breached the MSPs’ code of conduct.

However, Stuart Allan, the commissioner, dismissed the complaints as “irrelevant”.

He said in a letter: “Mr Harvie has indicated that his tweet was fully intended to be a satirical one. He states that he used an image from the film Life of Brian which he captioned in the light of Mr Trump’s comment ‘I am the evidence’. He considered that comment to be ‘egotistical to the point of being messianic’.”

Mr Harvie said: “As I said when I heard Mr Trump had apparently taken offence at my tweet, I never expected the Spanish Inquisition. Fortunately, the commissioner has spared me the horror of the comfy chair.”