Donald suffers an attack of wind as Scotland protests

Donald Trump at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh (PA)

As Donald Trump and his entourage swept into the Scottish Parliament early yesterday morning, a stiff breeze barrelled down from the Edinburgh crags and threatened to lift the famously thin but coiffured locks from the American entrepreneur's head.

As it did so, a bemused bystander remarked quietly: "Aye, now we know why he doesn't like the wind."

But as Mr Trump made it clear several times, he is not against wind per se: it is wind farms he doesn't like.

Specifically, the American billionaire doesn't like one particular wind farm, a project of 11 huge turbines which has been earmarked for the sea coast just off the shores of Aberdeenshire, in view of his luxury golf resort.

Yesterday Mr Trump was invited to "give evidence" to the Scottish Parliament's Energy and Tourism Committee and explain just why he was so opposed to this wind farm. He derided the Scottish Government's carbon dioxide reduction as "ridiculous, phoney and random" and the wind turbines themselves as "monsters".

But Mr Trump reserved his harshest criticism for Alex Salmond, an enthusiastic devotee of wind energy.

The two powerful men fell out when it became clear that Mr Salmond wouldn't halt the turbines off the Aberdeenshire coast.

"Now I call him Mad Alex," Mr Trump declared. And he added: "I feel betrayed because I invested my money on the basis of statements made to me. What they said was, they lured me in, I spent my money and now I could regret it."