Donald Trump and King Charles love Scotland. It isn't mutual

The first is King Charles, of course, who had a Scottish granny and who on Saturday will perch on that knackered old wooden Coronation Chair in London’s Westminster Abbey to be crowned monarch, though doubtless he would rather be striding through the gorse on the Balmoral Estate composing haikus about trees.

He is the grandson of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, who was born in London but spent much of her childhood at the family home of Glamis Castle in Angus before marrying the second son of King George V, later George VI. If you like your history leavened with a smidgen of pop culture, G6 is the one that Colin Firth film is about, the one where he smokes nervously, and Geoffrey Rush tries to cure his stutter by shouting at him.

In truth, none of this is whetting our appetite for the pageantry of the coronation or for things monarchical. A recent poll by market research company YouGov found that collectively just under three-quarters of Scots either didn’t care about the event at all or weren’t very interested in it. A mere six percent said they cared a lot. More people support the return of capital punishment.

Moreover, under half of respondents (47%) said they had a negative view of the royal family, and 40% said the UK should have an elected head of state instead. Someone like, I don’t know, Gary Lineker or Lorraine Kelly. Or maybe David Attenborough, if he’s not too busy.

Anti-monarchy activists stage a protest in Westminster Abbey on the spot where King Charles is to be crowned on May 6 (Image: Getty)

Commenting on the new polling – and helpfully pointing out the obvious – YouGov’s senior political research Lukas Paleckis said it showed the mood in Scotland is less favourable towards the monarchy than in Britain as a whole. Well, yeah.

A similar survey by something called British Future, conducted in May 2022, found that only 45% of Scots wanted to retain the monarchy and 36% thought the death of the then-monarch, Queen Elizabeth, would be the time to declare the UK a republic.

It hasn’t happened, of course, though there’s still time before the earth burns up. Personally I’d give it a cautious welcome, so long as Ed Sheeran doesn’t get to do the national anthem. We’d just end up in court being sued for breach of copyright by, like, Paraguay or someone.

Not that things look exactly rosy south of the Border viz a viz the royals. Scotland, with its collective shrug of the shoulders, may be leading the trend as regards the coronation. But support for the royals and for the institution of the monarchy is on a downward slide across the UK. The difference seems to be that in England, unlike in Scotland, the Royal Family experiences a bump in popularity around occasions such as weddings and, presumably, coronations. But the further you travel from London, the less anyone pays attention and the less remarkable those bumps become.

What does all of this add up to? In Scotland it adds up to no council offices anywhere being swamped by requests for street closures. To not much bunting going up on Saturday morning. To very few trestle tables being erected for people to sit around in order to toast the newly crowned king. To very little in the way of sandwiches, cakes or bubbling tea urns. To a mere scattering of coronation street parties.

That’s not to say we won’t watch some of it on television. We may have to, there won’t be much else on that day. And for anyone with even a passing interest in current affairs, it is certainly A Big National Event. One which, like Scotland qualifying for a World Cup, may only happen once or twice in a century.

Will I be watching? Maybe. Despite my best attempts to ignore it I imagine I will be sucked in. I’ve already strayed down one coronation-flavoured rabbit hole having spent more time than I thought possible reading about what Kate Middleton may or may not wear on her noggin come the big day.

Here’s a flavour of it, courtesy of one Lauren Kiehna, quoted in upmarket American magazine Harper’s Bazaar where she is billed as an expert on royal jewellery.

 “I’m certainly hoping we’ll see coronation tiaras,” she said. “But it’s possible that Charles is following the example of some of his European counterparts, like the King of the Netherlands, and setting a daytime formal dress code for the event. That would mean that we could still see some grand jewels, like necklaces, brooches and earrings but no tiaras.”

No tiaras! Fascinating stuff.

The other elderly white man who will be hogging the headlines this week if he does indeed climb on a plane and cross the Atlantic is Donald Trump, former President of the United States. He seems determined to drop in on the Auld Country at some point in the next few days, possibly to attempt a round of golf, possibly in the mistaken assumption that we have no extradition treaty with the United States so he can hide out here until his legal problems in New York blow over (memo to Don: we do, they won’t).

A protestor outside the Scottish Parliament ahead of the Unexplained Wealth debate into Donald Trump's golf course funding in 2021 (Image: Getty)

The coronation will likely be ignored in Scotland because most Scots are unmoved by the institution of the monarchy and so little invested in its future that they are disinterested in its present. But Mr Trump is not someone who can be ignored. He is a man we turn out to shout at, as happened the last time he visited Scotland. That’s because doesn’t divide opinion here as he does Stateside – instead, virtually everyone can see through his crass brand of mendacious, disruptive anti-politics. Even far-right commentator Katie Hopkins, who probably has a MAGA cap tucked away somewhere and has often defended Mr Trump, once described him as “strange”. Others who are not political travellers have said far stronger things.

But like King Charles, Mr Trump has strong and keenly felt Scottish connections. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born into a Gaelic speaking family and raised on a Lewis croft until she emigrated to the US aged 18 in 1930. She married well too – New York property developer Fred Trump, who she met at a party. If it was anybody else we would be proud of them. Not so Mr Trump, for obvious reasons. Poor Mary Anne MacLeod is not celebrated.

I don’t think the former President is planning to crash the coronation itself on his visit to the UK, but you never know with him. If he does, I hope he turns up in a horned helmet and a fur hat and not in a kilt. It would be far more in keeping and much less embarrassing. Both he and King Charles may love the land of mists and heather – but this side of the Irn Bru Curtain the feeling is not much reciprocated. And it makes for an uneasy sort of tension at times like these.

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