Trump's Investment - A Lifeline Or A Human Cost?

'Abso­lutely cru­cial human rights are being ignored'

‘Voice’ reader Jim Tal­bot responds to an art­icle pub­lished in last week’s issue and offers an altern­at­ive view on the value of Don­ald Trump’s invest­ment in the North East.

There is much to admire in Stephen Bremner’s art­icle, most not­ably, his clear loy­alty and com­mit­ment to his nat­ive land and his dis­like of Mr Trump’s alleged bul­ly­ing tactics.

Unfor­tu­nately, I can­not claim a birth ori­gin in the North East, although my wife ori­gin­ates from these parts, nev­er­the­less, I do feel a sin­cere loy­alty to the area and a great love of the area itself, its his­tory, cul­ture and people.

I take issue with Mr Bremner’s asser­tion that only a small minor­ity oppose The Donald’s great plan for the Great Dunes of Scot­land. ( see Aber­deen voice art­icle pub­lished 14th Jan. ) Cer­tainly, if you believe all that you read in the local com­mer­cial press, then you might be led to that con­clu­sion. The local news­pa­per report­ing on this issue has been abysmally biased and at times quite inflam­mat­ory, par­tic­u­larly in the way in which cer­tain elec­ted rep­res­ent­at­ives have been the tar­get of tabloid char­ac­ter assassination.

I have a wide circle of friends here in Aber­deen­shire, from all walks of life, and it is my exper­i­ence that the vast major­ity are either dis­in­ter­ested or can­not see the rel­ev­ance of the affair to much more fun­da­mental issues, or do indeed oppose the devel­op­ment, even if they do not choose to give voice to their oppos­i­tion. I have to say that such oppos­i­tion has, within my earshot, even been expressed by ardent mem­bers of the golf­ing fraternity.

“Fit dae we need anither golf course fer, ye can­nae fill the eins we hae” was one com­ment made, borne out by the fairly fre­quent and fer­vent recruit­ment cam­paigns and spe­cial offers run by many local golf courses, not to men­tion those golf courses which are under threat of clos­ure or the golf devel­op­ments which have been shelved.….but then per­haps The Donald’s real agenda was never just golf?

What about spin off invest­ment from The Donald’s scheme? Jobs in con­struc­tion, out­fit­ting, sales, cater­ing and other ser­vice activ­it­ies, not to men­tion the sup­ply of mater­i­als dur­ing and after?

Friends in Amer­ica have high­lighted the trend for such egot­ist­ic­ally gran­di­ose devel­op­ments to cre­ate very few jobs within a spe­cific area, and for mater­i­als as well as labour to be sourced at the cheapest rate going from whatever source avail­able — not to men­tion that even Mr Trump has had to scale back his oper­a­tions dur­ing the cur­rent reces­sion, with pro­jects axed!. There will prob­ably be no loy­alty to local people and the local eco­nomy to be found in such a devel­op­ment. The rhet­oric spouted by those mem­bers of the local busi­ness com­munity con­cern­ing the amount of trade such a devel­op­ment will bring to the area is largely pie in the sky, mere wish­ful think­ing. There are no such guar­an­tees given by such hard nosed busi­ness­men as The Don­ald.

In many ways, Don­ald Trump, and men like him, are to be admired for their drive and obvi­ous enthu­si­asm, how­ever, all too often the people who are for­got­ten are the ‘little people’ — the Michael For­bes and David Mil­nes of this world. In other words, you and I. Abso­lutely cru­cial human rights are being ignored and appallingly dan­ger­ous legal pre­ced­ents are being set in this affair — and all because local busi­ness lead­ers are scared to death that the major local industry, the oil industry, is about to fold.

Full Story: aberdeenvoice.com