Last night I appeared on Scotland Tonight (the biggest political TV show in the country) and told viewers that Trump was “the greatest living Scotsman”. It’s fair to say the comment sent Twitter into meltdown, but at this crucial time for UK there are reasons for the British to look forward to the inauguration.
Firstly, let me explain something about the President-Elect's heritage. There are plenty of Americans who refer to themselves using phrases like ‘Irish-American’, they are almost all descendants of immigrants who were born outside the USA several generations ago. Americans in this situation are not entitled to citizenship of the countries they identify with.
Trump is different, he is the son of a Scottish national Mary Anne MacLeod Trump who was born on the Island of Lewes in 1912. This gives him the right to claim citizenship of the UK, although he is not believed to have done so.
It often said Trump has never had a political job before, but this is not true. He was a Trade Ambassador for the Government of Scotland for nine years and was only sacked when he ran for the GOP Presidential nomination. He also has several businesses in Scotland and is a major landowner.
So, he is clearly Scottish, but why is he the greatest of them?
This week the British Prime Minister was able to handbag the European Union over their attempt to punish the UK for leaving. She was able to do this because Britain is no longer desperate for a trade deal with the bloc, and the reason for that is Trump has promised a “very quick” trade deal with the USA.
Knowing the USA is going to solidly support a post-Brexit Britain is absolutely vital to the success of those of us across the pond. Obama had said we would be “back of the queue” to get open access to American markets, but he’ll be gone pretty soon.
Trump sees British success as vital to the world, he agreed the country shouldn’t be a mere region of the EU. And he is not afraid to publicly state it.
He called his own election “Brexit times a thousand” because he wants the democratic, capitalist, English speaking people to throw off the yoke of bad government, whether that be in Washington or Brussels. He believes the Anglo-sphere is a force for good, and perhaps even extends American exceptionalism to countries like Britain, Australia and Canada.
Unlike Obama, the new US President really cares about the Special Relationship. Sure, he has attacked NATO but was he wrong to ask European countries to follow their treaty obligations and spend 2 percent of their GDP on defence?
Britain has been doing it for years, but countries like France, Germany and Italy are not. They are rich countries who expect the USA to pick up a defence bill they could easily pay themselves.
Adam Smith, who was Scottish, is perhaps the most famous proponent of the sort of capitalism that took the Trump family from poverty to gold-lined palaces. It’s the same thing that made America rich. But today the biggest advocate of it is Trump.
The English-speaking world’s dominance of the globe has been under threat for decades, Trump will reverse that economic and political decline. No other Scotsman has any chance of making such a large impact, so I say The Donald wins hands down
Oh, and he plans to end the ridiculous US ban on the sale of proper Scottish Haggis. I predict the dish - which is the lungs, liver and heart of a sheep ground down and stuffed into its stomach, then boiled – might well be on the menu at The White House…
...bet you can’t wait...