COLIN CAMPBELL: What would a US President Donald Trump and First Minister John Swinney meeting look like?
Donald Trump, sentimental old codger that he is, has an array of black and white family photos on a table in the Oval Office. One of the most prominent is of his mother Mary, who famously emigrated from Lewis to the United States as a young woman.
We can be confident that the 47th US president will grace us with his presence when he returns to her birthplace on his next State visit to the UK. He will be warmly welcomed here by tens of millions, and then again, perhaps not.
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He will travel north by air, regrettably. If his motorcade was earmarked to head up the A9 he might sign an Executive Order instructing the SNP government that it should be dualled in its entirety before his arrival.
"There are only two genders, male and female," he thundered at his presidential inauguration. What would Full-on John have made of that? That's the nickname John Swinney inadvisably decided to bestow upon himself in an interview with a tabloid newspaper.
Many of us have spent most of our adult lives believing Trump's gender assessment is broadly correct, while still being open to an alternative point of view. But in recent times the range of genders claimed to be in existence seemed to be increasing by the day, an expansion apparently welcomed by First Minister Swinney and even more enthusiastically by his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon.
Prior to Trump being reacquainted with Swinney, there have already been some puerile mutterings about Swinney snubbing him and refusing to welcome him north of the border. Sturgeon got some latitude with those antics when Boris Johnson was her guest, but John Swinney will not be foolish enough to try it on with the US president, unless he wants to run the risk of swift and temperamental export sanctions sending much of the Scottish whisky industry swirling down the drain.
Full-on John would also be wholly at odds with the president's attitude to immigration. Trump wants to drastically reduce the number of migrants entering the USA. Immigration? The SNP government can't get enough of it. There's no doubting how heavily the NHS relies on people from other countries and that can't be underestimated. But nearly a million migrants poured into the UK in the period for which figures are most recently available. The SNP government previously declared a National Housing Emergency, and yet they want powers over immigration to be transferred to Holyrood so they can bring even more people here. It doesn't add up.
"America First" is the new national slogan adopted by Trump. Swinney would relate to that by echoing "Scotland First", and many would proudly agree with him. But the outlook here is warped by a hardcore of extremists determined to ram home their feigned revulsion over the supposed sins of our forefathers and the perceived shame of the British Empire. Hence the enthusiasm which shamefully breaks out right across the UK for toppling statues, renaming streets, and university campuses, and issuing fatuous and bizarre apologies for events which happened one or two centuries ago.
The SNP are not exactly riding on the crest of a wave just now but Labour are making such an unholy mess of things - topped off by the brutal scrapping of the winter fuel payment for pensioners - that there's every chance the SNP will again be returned as the largest party in next year's Holyrood elections. John Swinney must hope so and that he remains First Minister.
Like many others, he will have multiple doubts about Donald Trump. But he would, I suspect, enjoy sharing the limelight with the man who has done quite well for himself since his mother left Lewis all those years ago. Full-on John could yet get a chance to cut a dash in the most high-profile company and live up to that very improbable nickname.
