Back the SNP (John Mowat)
As a former SNP candidate in both Orkney and Shetland, I have been puzzled why the Lib Dems have been so well supported, over many years, prior to the present Scottish election campaign.
There are many reasons why Shetlanders should consider voting for Jean Urquhart and the SNP on 5th May.
By putting the people first, the SNP has the vision to make Scotland a fairer, wealthier and more successful country.
We can look to Norway and Finland, as small independent countries which have made a good jobs of governing their peoples.
We in Orkney and Shetland are proud of our Nordic links and past. Many of us have enjoyed visits to Norway, one of the best places to live in, anywhere in the world. Nobody in Norway wants to give up their own government in the Storting and go back to being ruled by Sweden. It is unfortunate for Ireland that they made many of the same mistakes as Brown and Blair’s London Labour governments caused our present economic difficulties.
I agree with recently retired Lib Dem MSP John Farquhar Munro, who thinks Alex Salmond and the SNP have done well over the past four years and thinks they deserve a second term in government at Holyrood.
Local Lib Dem Tavish Scott may not have had 100 per cent support from all his MSPs over the past four years. He makes a big thing of being local. However, neither Jo Grimond nor Jim Wallace were local. They did not come originally from either Orkney or Shetland, but both achieved a lot in politics.
It is not where one comes from that is important, but what the party stands for in Europe, Westminster or Holyrood. The SNP has a better record than the Lib Dems in these parliaments.
Mr Scott cannot dissociate himself from Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems in London. They are the same Lib Dems, in coalition with the Tories, while we in Scotland are having to live with the consequences.
Only SNP MSPs will be able to stand up for Scotland or Shetland against Con-Dem cuts, so the more we elect on 5th May the better. I urge everyone to be part of better and back the SNP.
The SNP has frozen council tax for four years, protected NHS investment and delivered 25,000 new apprenticeships. We will maintain the extra 1,000 policemen, while protecting frontline services, with efficiency savings and by reducing waste.
Both Donna Heddle in Orkney and Jean Urquhart in Shetland would be be excellent MSPs, if elected.
John Mowat
Ollinsgarth,
Cunningsburgh,
Shetland.
Sandy McMillan
Well John, we can only hope this forth coming election will be the end of there reign, they have become very similiar to these tyrants in the middle east, its time we moved on with new faces on the stage.
mrs.C. Donald
Shetland has always been a closed shop and Liberal so hardly worth voting although Jo Grimond made himself more available to meet the public, shetlander or not, unlike Tavish Scott who dismisses the fact that a good deal of hard working people in Shetland are not born here.
Regards himself would be like a quote outwith politics I heard in a film – ” there are a lot of sentences with I and me in it”.
Sorry John but SNP give themselves standing nowadays far removed from their desruptive activities in Glasgow, including interruption of radio programmes, long before the sophisticated preferred history start in the 60’s and all about independence for themselves.
We are all good scots and the Saltire representation without the need of nationalists.
Christine Donald(formerly Rutherglen)
Sandwick
Gordon Harmer
Shetland has been a closed shop in the past but this election the doors are wide open and the reason is that a local independent candidate is standing. Billy fox has blown this election wide open because he is a local man who is passionate about Shetland and its future and this has grabbed the attention of the local electorate. It has also grabbed the attention of the other parties who realise that there could be change up here and they want to be in on the action. There was never this kind of interest in an election in the past, so what is different, a local candidate is the difference. In the short time that he has been to the fore he has said more than any other candidate and induced more debate than in any previous election. Labour the SNP and the Lib Con merchants have all latched on to this renewed interest and are pulling out all the stops to get in on the act. Where as in past years all the other parties thought Shetland was in a little box north of Scotland, they have now included it on their political map.
Ron Stronach
Shetland represented by the SNP?
Never in a million years one would have thought, not unless it stands for Shetland National Party!
If people are unhappy with the “National Parties” such as Lib Dems, Labour, SNP and Tory, then I think its time to leave them well alone, vote for an Independent for a change, someone who actually does care for Shetland and not someone who represents a national view.
Jamie Kerr (Shetland Labour Party)
Mr Harmer would do well to remember that the Shetland Labour Party had chosen their candidate and were campaigning in Shetland well before Billy Fox declared himself as an anti-windfarm candidate. It therefore cannot be said that the Labour party have “latched on to this renewed interest and are pulling out all the stops to get in on the act”. Perhaps the reverse could indeed be said with Billy Fox and his anti-windfarm friends arguably, as you put it, wanting to be “in on the action”
Gordon Harmer
Mr Kerr as a voter I had not heard of any Labour candidate prior to Billy Fox standing in fact I cannot recall who the Labour candidate is at this moment. So I have just phoned my neighbour and he cant remember who the Labour candidate is either so your campaign is not working very well is it. Just so you know I am a staunch supporter of the wind farm and not one of Billy Fox’s anti-wind farm friends. What I do know is Mr Fox as a Shetlander will do all he can for Shetland and with no party whip to conform to and no political agenda to follow he is the best bet for these islands. Unlike your candidate Billy Fox knows where Brae is, lets see you man come here to see me with out one of your local Labour guide dogs to show him the way.
John Kryton
Jamie Kerr, I live in Aberdeen and I read this forum and the Shetland Times and I know that Mr Harmer is a strong supporter of the wind farm as he has had numerous letters and poems published to state this. You as part of the local Labour Party should also know this and yet you refer to him as one of Billy Fox’s anti-windfarm friends. This shows just how out of touch the labour party really is, if you as a local member cant keep up with local issues how on earth do the Shetland electorate expect an unknown outsider as a candidate to keep up with important local issues.
You must be taking your lead from an ex Labour prime minister who called a woman with an opinion a bigot. Oh and by the way Billy Fox has every right to be anti-windfarm, and he is not wanting to be in on the action if you listen to him, he is the action, but your so out of touch you don’t know that.
Billy Fox
Labour candidate Jamie Kerr was not so much campaigning as making his mind up on issues before he even came to Shetland.
At both the Althing and Radio Shetland hustings he stated his support for the wind farm was formed after discussion with Viking Energy and Sustainable Shetland; not so Mr Kerr.
I was still chairing Sustainable Shetland when Mr Kerr first met with their vice chair on the 12th of March. He had already stated his support for the wind farm in the media on the 23rd of February, seventeen days before he sought any opposing views; perhaps he had not spoken with Viking Energy either!
Billy Fox
Shetland Independent candidate
Scottish Parliament
Quarff
Shetland
ZE2 9EY
Jane Booth
‘ they have become very similiar to these tyrants in the middle east’ I just want to say how disgusting this remark is and how poorly it reflects on the person who made it. Men, women and children are being murdered by their so-called leaders in the middle east and this man is so lacking in respect for them that he thinks it is ok to liken our political leaders here to those murderers who are literally destroying the lives of their citizens. Whatever you might think of our political leaders you should give thanks every day that you live in a democracy where you have freedom of speech which allows you to make such ill-considered and reprehensible remarks.