Beatrice Wishart to fight Shetland by-election for the Lib Dems

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Beatrice Wishart, depute convener of Shetland Islands Council, has been chosen as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the forthcoming Holyrood by-election for the islands.

It has been caused by Tavish Scott's resignation after 20 years in the Scottish parliament - he is going to take up a new job with Scottish Rugby.

Beatrice Wishart is a trustee of Women’s Aid in Shetland and is an active WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaigner.

Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, told Shetland News:

"She’s a devoted campaigner and an attentive councillor. I have no doubt she will bring the same energy to defending Shetland’s interests that Tavish has over the last 20 years."

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Keep the box around Shetland

Today the old boy gives us an interesting piece of Scottish Liberal history that has hitherto escaped publication.

Tuesday

A recent issue of The Shetland Times has been drawn to my attention. In it our own Tavish Scott celebrates the fact that those islands will no longer be shown on weather maps and the like in a box.

All I can say is that he must be a singularly unobservant fellow, as that box is not figment of a cartographer’s imagination but a thing of bricks and mortar.

It was Jo Grimond who ordered it to be built: he wanted to protect Shetland’s fishing grounds, discourage Viking raids and keep out canvassers from other parties. Much of the donkey work was undertaken by his wife Laura, with the young Jim Wallace making the tea.

I sincerely hope Scott does not intend to undo Jo’s work by having the Shetland Box taken down. What will be next? Adrian Sanders’ wall?

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

SNP candidate wrecks one of island's two phone boxes

A phone box yesterday

The Herald brings news of Danus Skene, who is challenging Tavish Scott for the Shetland seat at Holyrood:

Prize for the worst voter outreach effort of the whole election surely goes to the SNP's Danus Skene in Shetland. Canvassing Whalsay recently, the Old Etonian crashed his car into one of only two payphones on the island, wrecking it completely. 

The locals, who don’t have the world's best mobile coverage, are reportedly livid. "I didn’t wish to deprive them of it," sighs Danus. "I don’t have an excuse or an explanation."

And they said Alistair Carmichael was unpopular up there...

Alistair Carmichael: Shetland may reconsider its place in Scotland after yes vote

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An article published on the Guardian website this evening has, judging by the comments put the cat among the pigeons:

Oil-rich Shetland may want to reconsider whether it stays part of an independent Scotland in the event of a yes vote, the Scotland secretary, Alistair Carmichael, has said. 

In an interview with the Guardian, Carmichael said if the islands were to vote strongly no but the Scottish national vote was a narrow yes, then a "conversation about Shetland's position and the options that might be open to it" would begin. 

The Liberal Democrat MP, who represents Orkney and Shetland in Westminster and has been secretary of state for Scotland in the coalition government since last October, said those options might include the islands modelling themselves on the Isle of Man, which is a self-governing crown dependency, or on the Faroe Islands, which are an autonomous country within the Danish realm. 

Asked if he was suggesting that Alex Salmond should not necessarily take for granted that oilfields off Shetland will belong to Scotland in the event of a yes vote, he said: "That would be one of the things that we would want to discuss. I wouldn't like to predict at this stage where the discussions would go." 

His comments were echoed by Tavish Scott, Shetland's MSP, who, when asked whether Shetland would have to obey the will of Scotland if it voted yes, said: "Will it now? We'll have to look at our options. We're not going to be told what to do by Alex Salmond." 

The option of becoming a crown dependency was "something we will look at", Scott said, though he ruled out considering full independence for the islands.

Six of the Best 320

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill has just received its second reading in the Commons. Andrew Hickey celebrates the role of political activists in bringing about this landmark: "MPs will be taking the credit for this Bill, and the Act it will, with luck, become. They will be going on TV, doing interviews, and so on. But this would not be happening without the efforts of a fairly small number of people, most not in Parliament, who spent years of their life doing the groundwork that made this possible."

Bristling Badger on an appalling scandal: "Undercover police officers infiltrating protest groups stole the identities of dead children to create their fake identity. They would comb registries looking for someone with the same first name. They would visit the dead child's house and locality to get the details for the backstory. On the dead child's birthday, as the family would have been in sombre reflection on their tragedy, they would take activist comrades out to celebrate."

Jonathan Taylor on York Mix thinks HS2 is a colossal error.

Tavish Scott explains Up-Helly-Aa to The Scotsman.

io9 on why people in the United States are still dying from the bubonic plague.

The Last Places takes us underneath Whitehall: "Like the Pentagon, its better-known counterpart in the United States, Britain’s Ministry of Defence building is a fairly mundane, if gigantic, office block camouflaging a much more exciting subterranean realm of secret tunnels, bunkers, and - at least in the MoD’s case - a perfectly preserved Tudor wine cellar."

It's Shetland's oil!

From the Guardian's Scotland Blog:

Scotland's path to independence could become far rockier and more complicated than Alex Salmond might like, if the equally independent-spirited northern isles of Shetland and Orkney get their way. 

That, at least, is the view of their respective Lib Dem MSPs Tavish Scott and Liam McArthur. In a paper submitted to the UK government's consultation on the independence referendum, the pair have provocatively suggested that the two island groups' willingness to stay within an independent Scotland cannot be taken as given. 

Nor, if it comes to that, does ownership of "their" oil, which, by one measure, includes a quarter of the oil and gas wealth being claimed as Scottish by Salmond's nationalist government.

The post goes on to point out, the notion that the former Viking earldoms of Shetland and Orkney have their own, distinct views on self-determination and identity is a long-standing one. Many islanders don't regard themselves as Scots at all and are openly hostile to Edinburgh rule.

And it quotes the words of the former Liberal leader and Orkney & Shetland MP Jo Grimond:

"The last thing the Northern Isles want is to be ruled by Glasgow trade unionists and Edinburgh lawyers."

When I interviewed Tavish Scott, who was then the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, during the Lib Dem bloggers' unconference in Edinburgh in November 2009, I was struck by his "contempt of Scottish Nationalism in general and Alex Salmond in particular".

Clearly, Scottish identity is a more complex matter than Salmond likes to pretend.

Tavish Scott talks to Alex Cole-Hamilton

You can find more videos on the Scottish Liberal Democrats website.

A Lib-Lab coalition in Scotland?

“They couldn’t possibly do that,” say the strategists and plotters, “Not even the Liberal Democrats could be in power in two places at once, in two different coalitions, with two different partners pursuing radically different policies.”

Ah, but they can and, given half a chance, they almost certainly will and here is why.

Read Hamish Macdonell in the Caledonian Mercury to find out why, when the bookies start taking bets on next year's Holyrood election:

it might be worth thinking about the following: Iain Gray as First Minister, Tavish Scott as his Deputy, Nicola Sturgeon as Leader of the Opposition and the Tories in post-election meltdown trying to choose a new leader.

My Lib Dem News article on the bloggers unconference

Alex Foster treated the day with commedable seriousness

From Friday's issue.

Techies and Norse blood at Bloggers' "Unconference"

Liberal Democrats do not like being organised. Nor do bloggers. So when the first get together for Liberal Democrat bloggers took place last Saturday, it was inevitable that it would be billed as an “Unconference”.

And where should such free spirits meet but Edinburgh? As G. K. Chesterton once wrote, "It seems like a city built on precipices, a perilous city. Great roads rush down hill like rivers in spate. Great buildings rush up like rockets."

The select group of bloggers who made the journey to the Scottish party’s office at Clifton Terrace, in the centre of the city near Haymarket railway station, were rewarded with a full and entertaining day.

We argued about the best blogging platform to use, discussed ways of blogging on the move from your mobile phone and were given expert tuition on making podcasts by Liberal Democrat Voice’s Alex Foster.

The Unconference was well supported by the Liberal Democrat great and good, with three parliamentarians looking in to be interviewed.

John Barrett, who will be standing down as MP for Edinburgh West at the next election, was in bright form and upbeat about our prospects in Scotland at that election. He has long been a blogger himself, and spoke about his experience of using that blog to keep his constituents informed.

Interestingly, he does not allow comments on his blog, fearing it would descend into the sort of madhouse you sometimes find online, but is happy to correspond with individual voters by email.

Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem MP for East Dumbartonshire, arrived from the airport having just delivered a speech on the global economic crisis to a United Nations conference in New York. She needed no technical advice from anyone at the Unconference: as well as a website she has a Youtube channel to which she uploads campaign videos. We watched one of her presenting a constituency petition on climate change at the front door of 10 Downing Street.

In between these two MPs, we were visited by Tavish Scott who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats at Holyrood.

His Shetland background and constituency gives him a very different perspective on politics. Here is a man who once travelled with a troupe of Viking in full regalia – the Jarl Squad – to the opening of the Scottish Parliament.

You could feel this Norse blood stirring as he spoke with contempt of Scottish Nationalism in general and Alex Salmond in particular. He was clear, though, that if devolution is to continue to flourish then Scotland would have to start raising a large proportion of its own tax revenues. And he was adamant that England must find a way of combating its own democratic deficit.

Tavish also reminisced about his time in the Whips office at Westminster with future stars like Ed Davey, Adrian Sanders and Norman Baker. He made the experience sound rather like a situation comedy – think The Thick of It meets Men Behaving Badly.

A regular series of unconferences for Lib Dem bloggers would help us learn from one another, encourage debate among Liberals and enable us to find ways of helping the party during and between elections.

But wherever these unconferences are held, it will be hard to compete with the cakes on offer at this first event or with Edinburgh itself.

As Alexander Smith wrote in 1865:

“Living in Edinburgh there abides above all things, a sense of its beauty. Hill, crag, castle, rock, blue stretch of sea, the picturesque ridge of the Old Town, the squares and terraces of the New these things once seen are not to be forgotten.”

Everything you wanted to know about Tavish Scott...

There is a substantial profile of the new leader of the Scottish Lib Dems in the Sunday Times:

it is interesting that the only thing for which Tavish Scott, the newly elected leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, is renowned is bringing a troupe of “Vikings” from his native Shetland to the opening of Parliament last year.

“They came in full Viking regalia,” he says, “gave three cheers for the Queen as they walked past the box, which you’re not meant to do, found a buffet, scoffed the lot and drank the bar dry.”

The so-called Jarl Squad presented the presiding officer with a Jarl Squad tie, and he’s clearly proud of them. Have the Liberal Democrats finally found somebody with a bit of spunk?

Time will tell.