Sarah Masson works in Gordon Macdonald MSP’s office, and has previously worked for Christian Allard when he was an MSP and for Ben Macpherson, so it is only natural that she is standing as an SNP candidate at this election.
She told The Edinburgh Reporter about her reasons for standing as a candidate herself at this election.
She said : “I’m standing as a candidate probably for two reasons. One, because I think I could do a very good job at representing the people of Edinburgh West. I think their voices have been ignored over the past three years. And I think I could do a very good job of standing up for them there.
“And I’m also standing as a candidate in Edinburgh West because I think we need more women in politics and specifically young women, and the more people from different backgrounds and different experiences they can bring the better decisions that we can see being made at Westminster.
“My background is actually in theatre. I’ve been a theatre director and producer in various different capacities in the Lyceum at the Traverse at the Edinburgh Festival. I recently just produced the first ever LGBT playwright festival.
“In addition to that, I’ve also worked for several politicians. I’ve worked for Christian Allard, Ben McPherson, who’s the MSP for Edinburgh, North and Leith. And I’ve most recently run the office of Gordon McDonald MSP.
“One of the biggest things that keeps getting brought up is Brexit. And it’s inevitable because it’s dominating the conversation. But once you get to move past that, and see where the conversation and where people’s priorities lie after that, once we get to escape this mess, it’s things like transport.
“Transport in Edinburgh West and in various different capacities through improved bus services that are needed across the constituency. Then also looking to reduce congestion, have better cycle paths have better pedestrian areas for people to pick more sustainable modes of getting about the city and more active travel routes. And obviously what that’s going to contribute to as well is something that people are speaking to me about a lot – climate change.
“And as we look to tackle this, what we need to be doing is making sure that we have public transport and active travel that is more accessible to people, so it’s the easy option to choose. I suppose we’re also looking at protecting our NHS by trying to get more increased powers for The Scottish Parliament around drug policy around immigration, trying to push the UK Government to meet Scotland’s targets on climate change and step up to its kind of global responsibility on that.
“There’s a lot of kind of progressive policies that we’re putting forward at this election. But I think what is ultimately at the heart of this is deciding who has a say over our future is it us or Boris Johnson.”
The seat was won by the Liberal Democrats with a majority of 2988 in 2017, following an SNP win in 2015 with a similar majority of 3210.
Edinburgh West candidates 2019
BOLTON, Craig William – Scottish Labour Party
GUNN, Elaine – Scottish Green Party
HUTCHISON, Graham James – Scottish Conservative and Unionist
JARDINE, Christine Anne – Scottish Liberal Democrats
MASSON, Sarah Louise – Scottish National Party (SNP)
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