Deflating the balloon of expectation
Thank you for Hannah Mary Goodlad’s attempt to deflate the great balloon of expectation lingering from her prodigious election campaign.
Safely ensconced behind ministerial/MSP codes of conduct, the rush of hot air is deafening. As a government minister her ‘hands are tied’. She will be a “backbench MSP” with no more influence than her 60 or so SNP colleagues.
Pledging during her campaign to “push for a Shetland Energy Act”, her “shopping list” to John Swinney” was:
1. Planning: All energy project planning in Shetland (to be) under local control.
2. Seabed: Control over Crown Estate leasing and revenues to set conditions (for) offshore developments.
3. Community Consent: Community council approval before onshore energy projects proceed. Norway, Denmark, Germany, etc., already do this.”
Sidling up to Jo Grimond’s 1974 triumph, she added:
“The ZCC Act gave us control, power and our ‘oil funds’.
“Just as oil justified special legislation, the energy transition demands the same.”
“This is bigger than party politics.”
Now she’s admitting she will be unable to achieve any of it.
As a minister, “pushing for a Shetland Energy Act” won’t be possible.
“Ah, but…, it’s OK, she can push for local control of energy for all Scottish communities, including Shetland”?
Alas, the SNP’s brand new energy policy (December 2025) unveils a vast expansion of renewables, to six times the current level. That has to be built somewhere.
Notwithstanding her assertion that “Norway, Denmark, Germany, etc., already do this”, Scottish community councils will not be handed the power to defeat this key SNP policy.
So, it’s “hasta la vista, Shetland Energy Act”, and for that matter, everything else from Faroe to fishing, so plausibly alluded to and pledged during her campaign.
As somebody said, “a vote for Goodlad is a vote for the same old SNP you rejected so emphatically in the past.”
John Tulloch
Aberdeen
