ORKNEY and Shetland – aka the Northern Isles – was once a safe Liberal Democrat seat and although the former Secretary of State for Scotland Alistair Carmichael retained it in 2015, his 9000-plus majority was slashed to just 817, with the SNP, transforming it into a marginal seat with a near 21 per cent drop in his share of the vote.

The LibDems’ part in a toxic coalition with David Cameron’s Tories obviously had an effect.

It’s impossible to say if his vote would have been affected by the legal battle that became known as Frenchgate, which blew up after the election and saw Carmichael branded a liar in court over his role in the leak of a memo that sought to damage Nicola Sturgeon. The LibDems, however, may take some heart from last year’s Holyrood elections.

The seat is split into two constit-uencies – Orkney and Shetland – and the party held them both comfortably and increased their share of the vote.

Frenchgate and the Orkney Four who took him to court may now be recent history but for some the integrity of the LibDem candidate is still seen as questionable.

Christie Bryden is a 29-year-old voter who has lived on Orkney for a quarter of a century, doesn’t hide the fact that he wants to see a change from the LibDem domination of the Northern Isles.

“Carmichael got off on a tech- nicality – they say he was acquitted but it was a technicality,” he says. “I wonder why people still vote for them and I’ve come to the conclusion that they basically run the media up here.”

Danus Skene, who fought the seat for the SNP last time, has since died and the party’s candidate this time is Miriam Brett, a Shetlander who works for the SNP at Westminster.

However, Bryden reckons she still has work to do: “I’d love for her to win, but I feel they’re not doing enough to promote her up here.

“I don’t think she’s doing enough to really get her name out there. She is a new person, but a lot of older voters who are in the majority would find more comfort in a familiar face.”

Aside from the LibDem domination of the isles, Bryden says Brexit and its potential effect on the constituency, is another huge issue in this election.

“We have a lot of tourism here – it is a major element along with renew-ables, so a Tory-run exit from the EU would annihilate the islands’ econ-omy. And the LibDems would do nothing to stop that,” he says.

“We benefit a lot from the EU and we could lose a great deal, which I think a lot of people on the islands don’t realise yet. And of course that was the intention, to get this [Brexit] done before the full horror hits.

“If we had a longer period in the run-up to the election I think it would have been possible to do more work to get Carmichael out, but because it has been so rapid, we have not had enough time to put someone formid-able up against him. He was the Scottish Secretary for four years and did nothing for these islands.”

And the LibDems’ coalition with the Tories is another issue he feels will come back to haunt them.

“They have never recovered from that and the fact that they’ve refused to accept it was a bad decision shows how deluded they are. They are dead in Scottish politics and I’d urge people to wake up to that fact.

“They are spending a lot of money trying to keep Orkney and Shetland because they are terrified they will lose it – and they have been shaken out of their complacency.”

THERE has been much talk in this election campaign about the blurring of what constitutes Westminster and Holyrood responsibilities.

But Green Party member Fiona Grahame says it doesn’t matter whether the issues are devolved or not, as “the LibDems work on the lines of SNP Bad”.

She highlights ferry fares as a major concern, along with Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) under which they are based on the celling the cost of travelling the equivalent distance by road.

“There’s lots of grievance over Western Isles having RET which would not work for Shetland at all,” says Grahame. “The ferries are hugely subsidised because they were part of a PFI deal signed off by none other than [LibDem MSP] Tavish Scott but the LibDems skip over that and just go on about how expensive they are.”

She, too, is concerned about the effects of Brexit on the islands.

“Although there has been very little said on farming and Brexit – leaving the EU will have massive implications for Orkney as we have a lot of small farms that depend on CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] payments.

“Orkney and Shetland have also benefited an enormous amount from payments from the EU as part of rural development fund. All that will go and there’s hardly a peep about this on the street.”

Grahame also worries about renewables and what will happen to Orkney’s reliance on them as a result of Brexit and the UK Government’s attitude to the technology.

Higher education too is a concern: “The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) and Heriot-Watt will be affected by leaving EU in terms of funding for research and EU national students.

Writer Tim Morrison, who is doing a PhD on 17th-century Orcadian witch-hunters, also cites Brexit and renewables as his main concerns: “It’s the reality of Brexit rather than pretending it won’t happen – what the hell will happen to our farmers?”