Letters / I want a different table
I was at an accounting conference in London a couple of weeks ago.
The keynote speaker in the afternoon was a woman who had excelled in her academic career and has since gone on to be a successful television presenter.
She told the story of when she got her first senior academic post as a woman, in a university department dominated by men.
As a nod to her achievement, one of her senior colleagues congratulated her on now, as a woman, she had a “seat at the table”.
For obvious reasons that phrase struck a chord, having being repeatedly promised over the last few months that if I voted SNP we can finally have a “seat at the table”.
The speaker’s response was very direct, she told her colleague that she didn’t want a “seat at the table” – she wanted “a different table”.
Her point was that she did not want to become accepted as part of the status quo, where she just got to be part of the inner circle of a broken system, and where nothing really changes.
In the upcoming elections I do not want a seat at this SNP table – I want a different table. I want a new table where we can expect better than what we have got over the last 15 years.
If you are happy with the way the Scotland has been run for the last 15 years, if you are happy with the NHS, the Scottish economy, centralisation of services, ferries, education, council funding, fisheries management, etc then vote for a seat at the SNP table.
But if you want something more for Shetland and for Scotland – if you believe that we can do better – then vote for a different table.
Martin Tregonning
Dunrossness
