Molly Forbes v Donald Trump: Scotland needs to choose which side it is on

Human-interest stories should normally be treated with scepticism; anyone with a media studies degree is told that in Journalism 101. So at first, the emergence that an 85 year old woman named Molly Forbes has begun legal proceedings to prevent the local council seizing her home by compulsory purchase, to make way for Donald Trumps golfing resort at Menie in Aberdeenshire, bears all the trademarks of emotional ‘soft news’.

Yet, perhaps something more significant is going on. What her son Michael Forbes may well have realized - you don’t need a media studies degree to know this - is that sometimes it takes one person to polarize opinion. The public identify and see qualities they wish they had, if they too had nothing to lose, were a bit braver, and had more regard for their surrounding environment. An 85 year old women realizes her land is her castle; bureaucratic men driven by a will-to-power and short-term economic imperatives do not.

By making the issue about one easily identified and affable person’s standpoint, it stands renewed. The story at once registers on a deeper level: an aged women’s steadfastness over her home exposes Scotland’s disregard of theirs and reopens the short-sightedness of both the local and national political leaders. The well worn arguments take on renewed vigour, especially in light of Donald Trump's retort to the story.

Previously, perhaps it didn’t seem like your problem. Perhaps that man Michael Forbes put you off. But the issue is back revived, and the facts have not changed. The environmental issues are again scrutinized; the economic benefits are again weighed up.

Yes, Aberdeenshire needs something to fill the vacuum left by the oil industry but this will not be provided by irrevocably ruining wildlife and scenery with an architectural monstrosity that provides a playground for the rich and an essentially gated community of holiday homes. But this is not the place to repeat the arguments. That will hopefully happen in due course as result of Molly’s standpoint.

It is just conceivable that one woman can reignite the issue and influence the Scottish people to take it up once more - for it is those here now living and the generations to follow, and those alone, who have any claim to be Scottish - not the son of Mary Anne MacLeod.

Full Story: STV News