Bye, bye, Barack......

And so we say farewell to Barack Hussein Obama. 44^th POTUS. A good many British voters might well say ‘And good riddance, too!’

 

His keynote address was cold, condescending and downright insulting. To suggest that Great Britain with a population in excess of 60 million, the centre of the world financial services industry, the world’s fifth largest economy with a current growth-rate twice those of Germany and France and ten times that of Italy, the second largest aero-space industry, and much more, is incapable of thriving outside the stifling embrace of Brussels is not only belittling but downright insulting and ignorant.

 

And, worst of all, to say that outside the EU Great Britain would ’go to the back of the queue’ for trade deals was a threat; ‘do what I tell you to do or face unpleasant consequences’.

 

Boris Johnson weighed in with a typical Bojo defenestration of  Obama’s hijacking of the referendum debate. This was a long piece exclusive to The Sun. His central theme was in response to Obama’s ‘back of the queue’ threat (to be fair, it’s obvious that the speech was cleared and maybe edited in Number 10. The give-away is the word ‘queue’. This is a purely British usage that does not appear in the American lexicon).

 

He might also have added that there is no queue; Obama’s Pacific and European trade deals are stalled and he has not the slightest prospect of getting either through Congress. Neither have his successors. American business in  open competition with low-cost Asians? Turkeys might just vote for Thanksgiving!

 

Boris was immediately attacked for being ’racist’. His crime was to refer to the removal of the bust of Churchill from the Oval Office and reflect on  Obama’s origins. This is the totality of his reference during a long article.

 

‘Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.’

 

That’s all. Anyone who finds this ‘racist’ will find racism around every corner and be in need of remedial treatment..

 

The truth of the matter is that by-and-large the British have never taken to Obama.

 

At least he has secured his place in history. No POTUS has ever been so unpopular in the UK, although there have been close contenders such as Nixon. The ’Churchill bust’ saga was extensively reported in the British media and was generally  interpreted as a snub. Special relationship? That was a Churchillian construct; forget about it. At the time we were led to believe that it had been handed over to the Foreign Office. Now Obama says that he passes it every day in its new position.

 

Perhaps it’s in the Presidential bathroom.

 

 

 

 

 

Tax dodgers? Bah, humbug!

The hypocrisy over so-called tax dodgers is so thick you could lay it on with a trowel.

 

Osborne tells us  that there will be a ‘crack-down’ on tax havens. Well, we know all about his ‘crack-downs; we have been here before. Remember the ‘Lagarde List’ under which the Swiss government agreed to provide details of personal deposits by British taxpayers in Swiss Banks? Of course, the really big accounts are those of major companies, not wealthy individuals, so the effect was never going to be very dramatic. And so it turned out. The Swiss were given 18 months grace before disclosure kicked in, plenty of time to shift the accounts to more accommodating jurisdictions.

 

And so it came to pass!

 

The tax take from the ‘crack-down’ was derisory, HMRC had only one successful prosecution, and Switzerland remains at the top of the secrecy’ league table.

 

Hypocrisy kicks in big-time in relation to both the UK and the US. These are the world’s biggest tax havens.

 

The favourite US destinations are Delaware with more than 1 million ‘tax efficient vehicles’, and Wyoming, Nevada and Oregon with nearly 700,000 between them. There is a TEV for every six residents in Nevada.

 

Osbourne reckons to have another tilt at the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Since none is a tax haven and all comply with OECD disclosure requirements the tax haul will not solve George’s deficit problem any time soon.

 

Then there is the essential question: where’s the harm?

 

The ‘colonial’ tax havens, mostly in the Caribbean, were sponsored by HMG so that they might become self-supporting. As the Prime Minister of BVI pointed out in a recent TV interview, if its TEVs were closed down, HMG would be left to pick up the tab (current BVI GDP is around US$ I billion). The IMF reckons that BVI holds at least US$ 600 billion, but this is almost certainly an underestimate that does not take account of massive Chinese inflows in recent years.

 

Little of this has any discernible impact on the British people; we should not imagine in our wildest hallucinations that if Osborne strikes it rich by squeezing the tax dodgers he will reduce UK income tax, especially after he has finished refinancing the ’colonials’ from the DFID budget or confer any other benefit on the taxpayer.

 

What has had a massive impact on the people is the euphemistically-named Financial ‘Services’ Industry. It is a midden of chicanery, malfeasance and downright fraud. Ordinary people who relied upon deposits of their life-savings have seen the interest income fall to practically nothing, but with breath-taking spreads against loan rates, because of the world-wide financial crisis brought about by the reckless greed of financiers. Then there was – and continues to be – the PPI scandal in which the banks persuaded their customers to divvy-up £20 billion on insurance against non-existent risks.

 

And yet not only do the villains go unpunished but continue to draw salaries that often border on the obscene whilst continuing to profit from businesses rescued by the taxpayer.

 

Barclays Bank is a classic example. It has over 500 staff who are paid more than £1 million each, and nearly 1500 earning more than £500,000. Since half the remaining staff actually get paid less than then average wage, it is pretty obvious that the bank was being run not for the benefit of shareholders, customers or the workforce but for the fat cats at the top.

 

The ethical standards of the industry strike us ordinary laymen as being appalling.

 

At one level we have young people getting far too much money, whose sole motivation is to make as much as possible without any intrinsic job-satisfaction, and who regularly appear in the Red Tops because of their abuse of alcohol, drugs and sex. The customers are ‘muppets’, at least within Goldman Sachs. But at the highest level most malfeasance goes unpunished. In the UK there have been no prosecutions, although the boss who ruined the Royal Bank of Scotland had to accept the reduction of his pension to a mere £350k or thereabouts.

 

Financial institutions in the US have paid eye-watering fines; their customers’ money. In Britain we have had the IBOR scandals in which rate submissions were routinely falsified. But since the days of Gordon Brown politics has been the captive of the City.

 

Plus ca change!

 

 

 

 

Corbyn the Empire Builder.....

Corbyn comes across as batty as Baldrick every time he opens his mouth. Take his response to the Panama pantomime.

He has a cunning plan.

He wants the UK government to take over the Crown Dependencies to stop them being tax havens

As they are not part of the UK that might present a problem. They would have to be annexed forcibly. How are you going to manage that, Jezza? Send in the SAS?

Here is the constitutional position

The UK has no democratic accountability in and for the Crown Dependencies, which are governed by their own democratically elected assemblies;

It will not act internationally on behalf of the Crown Dependencies without prior consultation; each Crown Dependency has an international identity that is different from that of the UK; the UK supports the principle of each Crown Dependency further developing its international identity; it recognises that the interests of each Crown Dependency may differ from those of the UK, and the UK will seek to represent any differing interests when acting in an international capacity; and the UK and each Crown Dependency will work together to resolve or clarify any differences that may arise between their respective interests.

So there you have it. The UK takes care of foreign affairs and defence. That’s about it. The Crown Dependencies are to all intents and purposes independent states.

Then there is the issue of ‘tax havens’. The Crown Dependencies are not. They are merely lower tax regimes. If you win the lottery it’s no use hiding your wedge there because they will notify the UK tax authorities of any income and charge a hefty withholding tax if you fail to give your UK TIN.

If you bring in largish sums of money, the Financial Services authority will want to know where it came from. Failure to comply might see you end-up in the slammer.

But you might start closer to home, comrade.

In 40 years, the UK is named 148 times in the Panama papers; Jersey 38 times, and the Isle of Man just 8. Guernsey doesn’t even get a mention

The most secretive tax havens are 1. Switzerland; 2. Luxembourg; 3. Hong Kong (fancy mixing it with China, Jeremy?).

Well, you could have a pop at the US which comes in at number 6 in the league table of 80+ jurisdictions. Delaware and Nevada are particularly welcoming; ‘tax efficient vehicles’ there are completely anonymous.

 

 

Panama Panto

Just when the headlines were bleak (terrorism), boring (the referendum) or banal (Trump), along comes the ‘Panama Panic’ pantomime to add to the gaiety of nations. We have the spectacle of politicians, big-shot businessmen, ex-Presidents of tropical hell-holes, crooks, gangsters and money launderers running around in  ever decreasing circles with the inevitable eventual result.

Panama may be a leading player, but there are many others across the globe, from Nevada to Macao.

There is one closer to home which  is one of the biggest tax-havens.

 

At the last count, 340 leading companies launder hundreds of billions through it, paying a derisory  amount of tax on profits, about 1%. Tax on non-dividend income is 0.25%. It is favoured by PepsiCO which moved $750 million to minimise its tax liability on a $1.5 billion purchase of a Russian company, en route to Bermuda. IKEA has a holding company and a finance company to massage its tax liability.

 

There are other familiar names. FIAT and Amazon are amongst the most prominent. There’s Glaxo Smith Klein, the Pearson Group (FT and Economist), Northern and Shell (Daily Express). Fedex launders millions to its eventual destination in Hong Kong. It paid 0.25% tax on its non-dividend earnings. American companies paid 1.1% tax on profits of $95 billion.

 

Key players include Accenture, Abbott Laboratories, American International Group (AIG), Amazon, Blackstone, Deutsche Bank, H.J. Heinz, JP Morgan Chase, Burberry, Procter & Gamble, the Carlyle Group and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

 

One of the most intriguing is that bastion of public morality the Guardian Media Group.

 

US and UK companies lead the pack. $95 billion of American corporations’ profits  flowed through in 2012. The tax paid was 1.1%. Direct investment from the US  in 2013 was $416 billion, most of which was in ‘tax-efficient vehicles’.

 

$3.7 billion is held in managed assets, second only to the US. PWC advises hundreds of companies in how to use the system, employing 2.300 staff for the task. Complex accounting and legal structures are used to move money in and out, giving a tax rate of less than 1%. The Government issues hundreds of private tax rulings – ‘comfort letters’ – giving favourable tax treatment.

 

Tax revenues from this huge market are 5% of GDP, higher than British agriculture’s share of GDP in the UK.

 

The country raking in  all this funny money has a population of about 500,000. It covers only about 1000 square miles.

 

You will have guessed by now that the country is Luxembourg.

 

And who was the Prime Minister who presided over this gargantuan tax scam for more than 15 years?

 

Step forward Jean-Claude Juncker.

 

And who is head of the EU which has vowed to crack down on tax dodgers?

 

That’s right!

 

 

 

ISIL; what are you going todo now, Dave

The old war-time Music Hall comedian, Rob Wilton, would open his act  with;

 

‘The day war broke out, my missus said to me ‘ What are you going to do about it?’’

 

Well, Dave, Mutti, François and the more junior members of your gang, what ae you going to do about  Islamists bombing you?

 

When ISIL first came on the scene, the establishment would have us believe (probably because they believed it themselves) that this was a bunch of religious fruitcakes who wanted nothing more than to turn the clock back to 830AD, and create a ‘pure’ Islamic caliphate. Their atrocities were clear proof of this. They were not interested in ‘the West’ and were no danger to us.

 

Well. They got that ever so slightly up their bottoms.

 

The ISIL campaign is a continuation world-wide of what began as 9/11. Then the Islamic terrorists won both tactically and strategically; tactically because they succeeded only too well in giving America a bloody nose, the most destructive blow the US had ever suffered at home from a foreign enemy; strategically because the objective was to lure America into over-retaliation and almost endless wars in Muslim countries at vast cost in treasure and lives.

 

Not only did US take the bait but as an added bonus to jihadism its enemy number one was the jihadis’ #1 enemy also, Saddam.

 

And the great ongoing success of the jihad has been to completely alter the western lifestyle – the imposition of security restrictions which are merely symbolic, expensive and farcical.

 

So it’s time for you Masters of the Universe to make a plan

 

You begin with a clear description of the aim, followed by the objective before providing a count-down on the steps to be taken sequentially to get a result.

 

To define it is not difficult – to exterminate every manifestation wherever it is found anywhere in the world. ‘Exterminate’ is the key word. ‘Victory’ or ‘triumph’ or other weasel words have no place in recognising that this existential threat must be wiped out as thoroughly as if it were some ‘ebola’ type disease. It demands the utmost ruthlessness and if this offends the ‘human rights’ faction, that will not cause too much loss of sleep.

 

The objective clearly is to wipe out ISIS ground forces operating in MENA and elsewhere, and to obliterate all terrorist cells operating in Europe and elsewhere, including what are clearly sophisticated and extensive logistical chains. These will include safe houses, weapon supplies, electronic equipment, false passports and all other support elements

 

Then comes the most difficult issue of how to achieve the objective.

 

First, the ‘Home Front’.

 

We have been here before.

 

We had 30 years of IRA terrorism that killed and maimed thousands in bomb attacks on shopping malls, markets, pubs and office blocks. In Europe, there was the Red Army Faction and other murderous Marxists who specialised in the assassination of public figures.

 

Lord Carey summed it up succinctly in the DT.

Let us take the example of terrorism. There is a risk that by overreacting we are conceding the very freedoms which we should be defending. Terrorists want to create fear and terror – it is what they exist to do. They want to divide our societies and they want us to change our policies and jettison our freedoms. As societies, we are now in danger of subjecting our citizens to an unacceptable level of surveillance and intrusion for the sake of a safety we will never achieve.

And we have forgotten that these acts of terror in Europe are mild in comparison with the violence people are experiencing elsewhere. The frequency of terror attacks is not even unusual in Europe’s recent history. In the Eighties and Nineties, Europe experienced many acts of terror attacks at the hands of the IRA and other groups. The death toll of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie was an early signal of the lengths to which later Islamist terrorists would go.

In the UK, the security services seem to be doing a pretty effective job in catching jihadis, but it is a ‘given’ that indoctrination in schools and mosques must be firmly stamped out by putting the hate preachers out of circulation.

 

A good starting point would be the abolition of ‘faith’ schools, which have no educational value or relevance but are obvious breeding grounds for extremists. Banning all religious instruction and the wearing of clothing or artifacts proclaiming a religious belief naturally follows. Religion is excluded from education in France and the US by the constitution. It seems to have done them no harm; there are almost certainly more Church-goers in these countries than in the UK. And more widely, covering the face in public should be a criminal offence; after all, in English culture ‘mask’ means ‘criminal’ – your burglar or highwayman.

 

Schools and mosques should be subject to closure indefinitely or permanently if  radical Islamism is being peddled. Universities that tolerate the promotion of extreme Islam must be dealt with ruthlessly by dismissal of weak administration, withdrawal of funding and expulsion of radical students

 

There are some clues in the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 that served us well for many years. One provision was for internment. So that regardless as to whether there is evidence that would achieve a criminal conviction, those who wish us harm can be safely tucked away until the danger is no longer present. There were some effective ‘catch-all’ criteria, such as ‘spreading alarm and despondency’ and ‘giving aid and comfort to the enemy’. Public support for individuals or organizations like HAMAS that advocate and support terrorism as a legitimate political weapon might well lead to an extended sea-side holiday as in WW2.

 

The nonsense of airport ‘security’ which signals triumph to jihadis must be abolished immediately and changed to an Israeli-style profiling approach so that security officials can concentrate their attention on swarthy young men with beards rather than white grannies with Zimmer frames. The Brussels slaughter proves that all security scanning should be done before entering the departures terminal; it works pretty well elsewhere.

 

And now to the ‘Eastern Front’.

 

The present disaster is a direct consequence of Obama’s ‘no boots on the ground’ stance. Assad would have been gone within a month if the western alliance had given him a good shove.

 

The west must stop regarding the Syria situation as being ‘counter insurgency’. It is not. ISIL is clearly organized, well-led almost certainly by Sunnis trained by the US  as a part of the Iraqi army reconstruction, well supplied, well financed. The beheadings and other atrocities appear to be carried out by adolescent  cannon-fodder as part of a deliberate tactic to terrorise the local populations into easy submission.

 

The only realistic solution is crushing military intervention using all available resources and assets until the enemy has ceased to exist. Yes, we have been there before but we tend to remember the disasters of Dubya and forget that Gulf War 1 was  a resounding and rapid victory at minimal cost in allied lives.

 

And hopefully our leaders will have learnt a few lessons since Gulf War 2 and Afghanistan. Meanwhile ISIS in Libya is only about 80 miles from  a European landfall.

 

 

 

Butt-out, Barry.....

If there is one thing guaranteed to get up British noses it’s when foreigners stick theirs into our business.

 

So the British public is unlikely to have been impressed by Obama  pontificating for months about how essential it is for UK to stay in the EU. His latest piece of nonsense is to suggest that leaving would undermine European security.

 

Eh?

 

The EU has no security role. That is the realm of NATO which is older, bigger and more successful in its task than anything the EU has tried to tackle. On the contrary, Brussels’ persistent attempts to set up an EU security force would weaken NATO. Its track record to date has been abysmal. It is still struggling to get agreement on how to handle the influx of refugees, a task that we took in our stride in similar circumstances immediately after WW2. Meanwhile, the other members have been content to rely on Britain and France for credible military capability in Europe whilst they spend about 50% less on defence budgets.

 

The EU would still be meeting in Brussels as Ivan’s tanks rolled up The Mall.

 

And it is particularly outrageous that Obama should propose that the UK should accept the kind of regime that would cause another civil war if anyone tried to introduce it into the US . Just imagine; the decisions of the Supreme Court overturned by a jurisdiction based in Mexico City; or the suction-power of vacuum cleansers laid down from Canada; or decisions of Congress being struck  down by another legislature based in Venezuela.

 

He recently upbraided Cameron for not doing enough to contain Libya ‘because he was distracted’, presumably by the EU pre-referendum negotiations. (The real reason was lack of military capacity due to Cameron’s spectacularly ill-judged and ill-timed defence cuts).

 

But what did Obama contribute to snuffing out the troubles in Libya? After all it is worth remembering that the chaos now infecting the whole of MENA was a direct result of America’s disastrous Gulf War 2, described as ‘the greatest strategic screw-up since Hitler invaded Russia’.

 

The US disbanded the Iraqi army so there was no internal security presence. It fired all Baath party members leaving the country without a civil service. Rumsfeld was warned of the consequences before the war began, which he proceeded to ignore. Dubya had just about cleaned up the mess when Obama took over.

 

He dashed for the exit as a result of which the disastrous Premier of Iraq got rid of Sunnis in Government and the military. The army then disintegrated after the US had spent about $25 billion on training it. Undoubtedly ex-Iraqi soldiers explain the success of ISIL, which the world is belatedly recognis9ng as more than a rablle of savages.

 

But after starting a bushfire that has spread across the Middle East, Obama has sat on his hands. Every time he draws a Red Line, Putin scrubs it out. He has done almost nothing about the Syrian conflict in five years. As to the refugee problem, the US has taken less than 3000 to date out of a total that must now exceed 2 million in Europe alone.

 

Now Obama is to visit the UK, stirring up apathy.

 

So keep it up, Barry. Every time you open your mouth there’s a few thousand more ‘ leave’ votes for the Brexiteers.

 

 

 

 

Arthur or Martha?

We oldies may be forgiven that for feeling that we are sometimes inhabiting a parallel universe with today’s yoof.

 

In our young days one of our concerns was freedom, especially of speech and expression. Then, it was severely circumscribed. Films were censored, and even if they survived scrutiny by the British Board of Film Censors, the Watch Committee of the local Council could ban it. The chairman of one such got rather more media coverage than he expected when he banned ‘Deep Throat’ . ‘In Southend oral sex is something which we will not swallow!’ he announced.

 

The theatre had been censored by the Lord Chamberlain since 1737 and was only abolished as late as 1968. Swinging sixties indeed. The office was responsible for some of the barmiest decisions known to man, including banning the words ‘up periscope’ from a Naval offering on the grounds that it might suggest buggery!

 

The Obscene Publications Act is still with us, so if you believe that ‘anything goes’ in this louche era you may be in for a surprise.

 

So the British people having campaigned for freedom of speech for centuries, where stands the present young generation?

 

Mainly in favour of banning anything that does not meet their own crackpot view of the world.  The ‘Rhodes must go’ campaign was a case in point. As foreign Rhodes Scholars privileged to be able to study at the expense of the British at Oxford University, the two black South Africans who led the campaign to get rid of the statue of Rhodes from Oriel College repaid our hospitality by insisting that British history should be rewritten.

 

Their future in South African politics is likely to be ‘solitary, nasty, brutish, and short’, (not that they would recognise the origin of that quotation).

 

Now it seems that there is a much broader target. They call it ‘No platform’, which means that they will refuse to give a hearing to any visiting speaker whose views do not coincide with their own. They have no wish to hear any alternative case.

 

One of the most publicised examples was when Germaine Greer was ‘no platformed’ because her views on ‘transgender’ did not suit the student Stalinists.

 

‘Trans’ seems to be their main focus for reasons that are completely obscure except for their wish to uncover even more ‘victims’  of this wicked, uncaring, selfish capitalist society. Nobody knows just how many ‘trannies’ there are, but a tiny minority of perhaps a few thousand at most.

 

The unvarnished truth is that the whole ‘trannie’ issue is a myth. There is no such thing as ‘transgender’; the word does not exist in the English language. Bearing in mind the deplorable state of literacy amongst today’s students, perhaps they mean ‘trans-sexual’ wherein a man wants to be a woman or vice versa.

 

Well, the bad news is that a sex change is not possible. Greer got into trouble by saying that a man who had his bits-and-pieces chopped off  was not a woman but a mutilated man; a eunuch. She was absolutely right.

 

It is simply not possible to change sex. A person born with one ‘X’ chromosome and one ‘Y’ is male. The female has two ‘X’ chromosomes. Nothing can change that.

 

There is no doubt that there are people who believe that they are in the wrong body for whatever reason; psychological, hormonal?

 

They don’t know whether they are Arthur or Martha; they deserve sympathy, not surgery!

 

 

Another nice mess......

 

The way we see it across the pond is that Europe and the UK will not unite under a common federation for the simple reason that both are far too tribal to permit domination by any single country component. The lack of tribal society in the USA is precisely why our federation has worked as well as it has.

 

This is not to say that a looser and more flexible union is impossible. The lurking suspicion remains that Germany is intrinsically dominant, France is congenitally xenophobic and the UK does not consider itself a European nation. In short, the basis for unity among Anglo and European nations does not exist.

 

The type of organization the EU needs to develop is still evolving and will continue to evolve as long as internal and external threats to its legitimacy arise. Once such threat is the immigrant dilemma which was clearly the result of Germany projecting a self image of a refugee friendly country in need of skilled workers. This image may well prove to be the downfall of Angela Merkel, but it will not make the German people less dominating

 

It is not that the Yanks don't have problems of their own; a major one being Donald Trump. Indeed, the entire cast of characters who make up candidates for the American Presidency are third rate adventurers seeking personal objectives that have little to do with statesmanship, leadership of the free world and competence in meeting contemporary challenges.

 

Donald's critics are finally getting it. He is a bully. Both Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney have recently used that very word in describing his character. His bullying has decimated candidates like Marco Rubio (little Marco) and Carly Fiorina (who would vote for a face like that). He regularly labels Ted Cruz a liar which he justifies by stating that he had to degrade Ted when his polling statistics began to rise. Donald has insulted just about everyone from individual reporters like Fox's political commentator Meygan Kelly to groups of people like the entire Muslim world, the Japanese, Chinese and Mexicans.

 

The inevitable association between The Donald and Adolph Hitler has belatedly hit the market and the loony left is issuing Nazi salutes at his rallies whenever they see a media camera. It looks as if these protesters have got his number as they are appearing more frequently and in greater numbers at Trump political rally. Donald wants the police to arrest them all and has very carefully avoided taking matters into his own hands. Clearly, the protesters are organized but by whom remains unclear. Donald blames Bernie Sanders supporters for one incident, but there are a myriad of groups, minorities and organizations that would gladly plot his downfall.

 

The USA has endured campaign episodes like this in the past. The vitriolic protesters are nothing new in theme or in scope. Not surprisingly, these protests help Donald politically by showering him with free publicity and by making him look like a victim. He needs to keep his wits about him, however, lest he succumb to the temptation to involve his own security people in combating the protesters and thereby enhance the 'brown shirt' image.

 

Unless something dramatic happens, it looks like Donald will indeed be the Republican nominee for president. Dr Ben Carson recently bowed out and soon afterward endorsed Trump. Rubio and Kasich are miles behind in the electoral vote counts and have no hope of catching up. If Ted Cruz had his way, they would both drop out and give Ted the chance to campaign one on one against Trump. Ted must know by now that his still would have no chance of beating Trump in the remaining primaries.

 

There is some talk of having a brokered convention in which those people who have delegate votes would meet and agree to deliver the majority of their votes to someone other than Trump. This is feasible from the perspective that the Republican establishment seriously dislikes and fears Trump as a loose cannon and as a person who has promised to upset the prevailing legacy of 'going along to get along' in the House and Senate. The problem is, that any such brokerage would logically involve the next most popular candidate; Ted Cruz. And the establishment hates Tad as much as they hate Donald.

 

Talk about adding to the gaiety of nations

 

 

 

 

Donald trumped by Old Molly....

In the event that The Donald becomes POTUS, an event that is turning from nightmare to possibility, there will be one place where a State Visit will be unwelcome.

 

Scotland. In particular, Balmenie, home of the Trump Golf Links.

 

Ten years ago he bought the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire with the avowed intention of building  Golf Links aimed at the mega-rich. When the news got out, all hell broke loose amongst the locals.

 

This was a site of special scientific interest (SSSI). It was one of the most important and sensitive environmental and conservation areas in Scotland. Its sand dunes were unique. It was a treasure trove of wildlife, marine life, trees and plants, and the local and national conservation organisations were appalled. So was the local planning authority. It threw out the planning application as an environmental disaster and totally incompatible with all planning criteria.

 

And there the matter should have rested. But there is a particular characteristic of Trump. He is only too aware that money talks and that many politicians like what it says.

 

Step forward the Wee Eck aka Alex Salmond, the then Chief Minister. In an almost unprecedented move, he had the planning application called in, and in the teeth of local opposition led by the Aberdeen Council, permission was duly granted. Salmond’s case was that the employment and economic benefits outweighed environmental considerations, although the economic benefits of a game of golf are not clear. But it has been described as ‘one of the worst environmental crimes in recent UK history’.

 

Then the irresistible Trump came up against the immovable Molly Forbes, a feisty Aberdonian in her 90s.

 

She and her son occupy a farm bordering Trump. He wanted it, and tried every kind of blandishment, bullying and intimidation. He even tried to persuade the authorities to use a compulsory purchase order, a perversion of justice since CPOs are for developments in the public interest, not private gain.

 

Molly found her water supply interrupted. Her electricity was cut off by a Trump digger. There was alleged harassment by security guards. The makers of a documentary about the ruckus were arrested by the Grampian Police, handcuffed and bundled into the back of a police car. No charges were brought.

 

Trump described Michael Forbes, Molly’s son, as ‘the village idiot’ , and described their farm as a ‘pigsty’. Meanwhile, photographs of the refuse, waste and general detritus on Trump’s building site suggest wholesale breaches of health and safety and hygiene rules.

 

But Michael and Molly are as immovable as the granite hills of Aberdeenshire

 

And Nemesis may be just around the corner in the shape of Scotland’s draconian new limits on drink driving; one drink could cost you your driving licence. Alcohol consumption has dropped by as much as 60% in some places. Golf clubs are particularly affected because of the tradition of playing the 19^th hole. One major club has already gone bust.

 

Maybe time to revise those profit forecasts, Donald.