An assured campaign so far by SNP candidate Hannah Mary Goodlad may indicate the end for Liberal Democrat rule in the isles. On the other hand…

 

The initials are unfortunate, to say the least. 

HMG: His Majesty’s Government. Hannah Mary Goodlad. The two are clearly not one and the same, as Hannah Mary’s campaign to win the Shetland Holyrood seat for the Scottish National Party continues to gain ground. In a locality which has returned nobody but a Liberal or Liberal Democrat since the beginning of recorded time. Or 1950. Very good candidate, nice person: vote for her.

EM… as in uncertainty and hesitation, as Liberal Democrat Emma MacDonald, currently political leader of Shetland Islands Council and a late public convert to Libocratism, attempts to stop HMG’s seemingly impregnable charm, intelligence, social media suss, local connections and careful choice of knitwear. Party with a long history in Shetland, doing well nationally. Don’t personalise, partify: vote LD.

But here’s the thing: Hannah Mary, despite her poised and carefully-coiffed attempts to disguise the fact, is an avowed secessionist. A woolly one, as she muffles that part of her ideology in cuddly parochialism. But she undoubtedly wishes Scotland sheared off from His Majesty’s United Kingdom, and has committed herself utterly to the party that trades in separation anxiety, ferry and NHS incompetence and a general  intellectual dunderheidedness, the SNP. 

But that’s all right. Because HMG says (again and again) that she is going to have a A Place at The Table, and will save the day for Shetland. Never mind that it’s a table laden with whiffy dishes, well past their sell-by date, and that  the seats are occupied by a bunch of facile romanticists and  idealist gender warriors; that the smell of past corruption still lingers with the threat of lawsuits and criminal cases.

HMG to the rescue, though. She has a personal manifesto that will serve up fresh, tasty dishes. Because she’s nice, and she’s ours. And she is nice. And she is ours. She  loves Shetland and has returned from exile to rescue us. She used to have several portable saunas (her former company is called Haar, or fog). And she is undoubtedly making the Liberal Democrat opposition sweat. Forget the insufferably pompous Greens, despite their candidate’s hand-written vanity project. And though it pains me (as a former Labour Party member and indeed councillor) a Labour contestant essentially playing for list visibility. 

Reform’s Vic Currie is a mystery man, the Tories are blooding a sacrificial lamb, and Brian Nugent is there or thereabouts, as ever for a mystical Sovereignty. Peter Tait apparently wants a King residing in Muckle Flugga. In reality, this is a straight fight: EM or HMG. LD or SNP. I should say that I was in the SNP too at one point. I’ve never been a Liberal Democrat.

 HMG understands energy and fishing, she says. Maybe. Her family is steeped in salt water. But within the fishing industry it’s all about the party she represents. Can HMG change the SNP? Can they really trust a party that seems willing to sell that industry out to other European countries’ interests and to global energy consortia? An energy industry a Norwegian branch of which HMG spent 10 years working for and to which she will doubtless return in the event of defeat at May’s election?

Ah, but Hannah Mary has negotiated cheaper ferry fares for Shetlanders, comes the cry. No, an SNP party machine, scenting victory and desperate for success in Shetland when polls show their vote is decreasing everywhere else, ruthlessly acted as a Government for electoral advantage. It was a power play wrapped in designer Fair Isle knitwear.

Emma MacDonald’s campaigning thus far – and remember there’s a long way to go –   has been over-cautious and uncertain, not to say fumbling. As ‘political’ leader she is battling local suspicion of a council that – and I speak as a former member – is mired in a bog of inadequacy and is the subject of sometimes deserved ridicule. I feel for its executive, who at least have annual assessments, performance reviews and professional standards to deal with. Our elected council seems to  bumble along in a haze of miscommunication and obfuscation, not to say secrecy. It’s a bad look, to say the least.

The Liberal Democrats want us to vote for a party. Hannah Mary wants us to vote for her, and forget that embarrassing independence stuff, not to mention all the other nasty little secrets and lies the  current Scottish Government is attempting to sweep under that noxious table of theirs. She is more likely to be clearing the plates for the party heavyweights than actually deciding what’s on the menu.

That noisome table wouldn’t pass any objective health and safety investigation. On the other hand, the LibDems, even if they do increase their share of the vote, as predicted, can do little but make polite noise. From another room altogether.

So what to do? Who to vote for? Things are likely to get tetchy, not to say brutal as the vote gets closer. Honestly, stop whingeing, candidates! HMG has previously had first minister John Swinney visit twice and various political kitchen sinks remain to be chucked at this campaign by the SNP machine. 

Maybe Emma will come out with Sullom Voe flarestack blazing and, along with a predicted national upsurge in Lib Dem support, help wipe that infamous Governmental table clean, ready to be reset with precision, care, compassion and insight. Or at least Emma will talk about it.

But she’s running out of time. Em or Han? HMG or EM?. Initial signs are that three initials are cruising towards beating two. But while HMG is the queen of social media, through which she has already fought an inspired and brilliant campaign, I think there is a deep-seated reluctance in Shetland, particularly among older people, to embrace change. This place has been a liberal stronghold since Jo Grimond took the Orkney and Shetland Westminster seat from the Tories 76 years ago. And while that ‘vote Liberal’ graffiti over at Waas has faded, you can still make it out. Just about.

And retiring Lib Dem MSP Beatrice Wishart has been a quiet source of sanity at Holyrood, protecting as best she could Shetland’s interests and notably – and bravely – standing up for the rights of the vulnerable in the assisted suicide debate. The only LibDem to do so. And an issue on which Emma has in my opinion  chosen the wrong stance, and Brian Nugent and John Erskine the correct one.

In other respects, Emma is being promoted as the succession candidate. Is she? Has HMG peaked too early, annoyed too many with her entitled use of the town hall to launch her ‘manifesto’ and hilarious championing of Orkney and Shetland MP  Alistair Carmichael as providing ‘critical ballast’ to her in Westminster?

 Who knows?  Secession or a sort of succession? It’s our choice come May. And it is all, to say the least, initially interesting. Shetland must decide if it wants a seat at a broken table (HMG) or a quiet voice in a different room (EM).