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Hannah Mary Goodlad has rolled the dice and they’ve come up a double six. The ferry motion has passed, and we are on the board, now the process will play out, and we will see how government can work for Shetland if the right people are playing the right game on the right table. What is the difference? Why is it happening now when it didn’t happen before? Some people are saying it’s because there is an election coming, and certainly that is a factor. But only in so much as Hannah Mary Goodlad is standing in the election, so of course it’s happening now. But why didn’t it happen before? Some say the Liberal Democrats have become complacent and lazy in their inertia. I was told recently that the Liberals have held Orkney and Shetland for all but 17 years since 1832, with a couple of Tory MPs in the intervening years. The complacency and inertia must be running deep now. No wonder the Shetland seat was used to leak false information to misled voters against the SNP at a previous election. Liberal Democrat leadership must have thought nothing could possibly go wrong, Shetland will always vote Liberal Democrat, no matter what. And they were right. But why has so little happened? Why have they achieved so little in our name? Is it because they dare not rock the boat? If they don’t do anything, nothing can go wrong, and Shetland will keep voting them back. But if they stick their head up, and it doesn’t work out for them, they might attract negative attention, and then they might lose. That would be my assessment. Is it the “British” way? The way they dealt with the Irish famine, the Indian famine, the Highland Clearances, the abuse and exploitation of the native people of all the colonised lands of the British empire? And this all through the times of Liberals holding Shetland. Is that how we want to continue? I doubt it. What does Hannah Mary Goodlad do that is different? She fights for Shetland on the appropriate platform, and the platform that offers the best future for Shetland. She could have joined the Liberal Democrats and almost been guaranteed a seat. But not at the table where the difference is made, not at the table where her voice must be listened to, and not at the table where change happens, and fights are won. She could have joined their ranks on a cushy number as a Liberal Democrat MSP. But how would than benefit Shetland, being under the thumb of the English ruling class, and at the beck and call of corporate enterprise, rather representing her electorate? But she chose to fight - fight for Shetland, fight for Scotland, and fight for independence on a world stage that will take Shetland out of the box on the map of the UK. So what do you want? More ancient posh-people politics doled out by the lords and ladies and the ruling class of England, the remnants of the fallen Brittish empire hanging on to their failing ideals like a broken string of perls scattering and lost across a marble floor? Or do you want a new chance, a chance to make a difference, a chance to connect with the world on our terms, a chance to be welcomed by so many whose eyes already light up, and whose welcome already deepens in warmth when they ask if you are from England, and you reply “no, Shetland” or “Scotland” Give your vote to Hannah Mary Goodlad in May 2026, the saviour of Shetland’s future, for a seat at the table, and a chance to take control of the direction that we go from now on. No one else is making you this offer, and no one else can. David Meddes Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.
