Will Trump’s visit go with a swing – or is it on course for disaster?

Hundreds of guards, high perimeter fences, watchtowers... no, it’s not Alligator Alcatraz but a corner of rural Ayrshire, where Donald Trump owns a little golf course. After the eagle has landed, he will be enjoying a little downtime before heading off to his other international links, up in Aberdeenshire. That’s the Trump International – as some recently installed unofficial signage wittily added, “Twinned with Epstein Island”.

Anyway, he’s overpaid, oversexed, and over here, and he’s going to get a mixed reception.

Not on this occasion. Inexplicably, the environmentally conscious, vaguely progressive monarch won’t be at Balmoral, so handy for the Trump International course. Therefore, not even a plate of Duchy Original oatcakes will be laid on for the 47th president by His Majesty. Instead, the King and Queen will be sequestered at Windsor Castle, phone off the hook.

However, the red carpet, tiaras and gold plate will be on full ostentatious royal display when Trump returns for his full state visit, his second, from 17 to 19 September. Even Trump should be impressed by the quantity of gilt, solid silver and precious jewels he’ll be surrounded by. It’ll be just like the redecorated Oval Office, but less gaudy.

Again, circumstances have somehow worked against the planners. By unusually bad luck, parliament will be in recess for both visits, so President Trump won’t have the pleasure of being able to spot Nigel Farage, Lord Mandelson, Lady May or any other old acquaintances at such a gathering. On the plus side, he’ll be spared some unruly types shouting “Free Palestine” and “Release the Epstein Files”.

Trump says he’s not bothered about all that, even if President Macron, President Reagan, and President Barack Hussein Obama (as Mr Trump likes to call him), among others, have been granted the honour. Just as well, eh?

Good news here. After plenty of golf, and inspecting the finest courses in the world (by far, actually; there’s nowhere like them anywhere; there really isn’t; make golf great again...), he’s got a little time booked in with Keir Starmer on Monday. For reasons no one understands, Trump gets on with this woke, radical, left-wing human rights lawyer, so you never know what might emerge.

Starmer is keeping it fairly light – so no negotiations on steel tariffs, for example – but he will have to raise the Middle East. Even Trump must be uncomfortable seeing pictures of starving infants in Gaza, and the first lady might also have pointed out that Benjamin Netanyahu has been playing America along. Unlikely to be a bust-up, anyway, given that Starmer has so far declined to follow Macron in recognising full Palestinian statehood.

Less happily, Scottish first minister John Swinney has managed to wangle a meeting with Trump (something denied to Nicola Sturgeon in her day), and might wind him up a bit, Zelensky-style. Let’s hope so: the fallout could be spectacular.

It’s possible. There are reports that the giant inflatable model of Trump as a mewling baby in a nappy, seen on previous visits, is being readied, but probably more for London. In Scotland, its appearance anywhere near the president might invite an attack from an F-16.

Afraid so, aye. His mum, Mary Anne MacLeod (b 1912), came from the Outer Hebrides and emigrated (presumably legally) to the United States in 1930. She married Fred Trump six years later, gave birth to Donald in 1946, and the rest, as they say, is Trumpery.