Drew Cochrane on returning home after a month in 'paradise'

Where I was, in Safety Bay, Western Australia, for a month is known to locals as 'paradise', thanks to its all-year-round Mediterranean climate, white beaches, playful dolphins, imperious pelicans and outdoor life.

You just have to watch out for the snakes and sharks.

Therefore, after so long away, I have had to catch up on the recent editions of this blessed blatt, thanks to my pal Dougie who preserved them for me. Not a coffee or wine stain in sight.

Nothing has changed much. Apart from the full pages about the latest charity fundraising ventures it seems to be doom and gloom, much like watching the evening news on TV.

If impoverished North Ayrshire Council have their way, libraries will close, school crossing patrols will vanish, car parking charges will go up, a tourism tax will hit many visitors, and you could be charged for having your brown bins emptied, with the other bins collected less frequently. Fewer teachers, cleaners and health care workers are also proposed by the bureaucrats.

Libraries across North Ayrshire could be closed under the council's cost-cutting plans. (Image: Jamie Taylor/Unsplash.com) We seem to be heading back to a sort of dark ages where even the Christmas lights won't go up. Officers are claiming that the Largs seafront car park revenue - earmarked for local projects - cannot be used. Why? Because some official in the NAC offices in Irvine or, more likely, sitting in their bedroom, in their pyjamas, says so.

All of the local councillors want to use the money and, as I have pointed out before in this column, you now have non-elected officials dictating policy. It used to be the other way about.

Speaking of elected members it should have been front page news when the Labour group agreed with the Conservatives that their leaders Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves had made a "horrendous decision" in stopping the winter heating allowance for pensioners. In fact, the SNP group also backed the council in writing to Westminster and Holyrood to express fears about people dying from cold.

The only consolation of Scottish Government cuts is that it surely puts an end to the daft plan to turn half of Largs prom into a cycle lane. A case of the so-called 'active travel' derailed. 

On a brighter note, it's good to see that the new Largs Development Trust are planning to open an Advice Centre in Boyd Street next month.  We used to have a Citizen's Advice Bureau there years ago and it's great to hear of this volunteer initiative.

Congratulations also to the hard-working volunteers of Douglas Park, who have won a top award from Keep Scotland Beautiful for their sustainable gardening philosophy and project at the Irvine Road location. They represent Scotland in the UK Royal Horticultural Society Community Gardening awards.

In the good old days when councils looked after the town, before doom and gloom, Largs were regular finalists and  winners of the Scottish and British Bloom awards.

I shall try to dig up more green shoots of recovery in future columns. Perhaps we are not paradise lost after all?

Thought for the Week: Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats

I was not surprised to see that long-serving MSP for Cunninghame North, Kenneth Gibson, was among the winners at the Scottish Politician of the Year awards.

The SNP member was named as the 'Committee MSP of the Year' for 2023 in the annual event, organised by The Herald (sister paper to the Largs News).  Judges recognised that Kenneth, who has been convener of the Scottish Parliament's finance and public administration committee since 2021, puts party allegiances aside to hold ministers to account and "force them back to the drawing board" on some contentious issues.

He was commended for "eagle-eyed work on the Scottish Government's spending plans". Should that be spending cuts?

Cunninghame North's Kenneth Gibson was named 'committee MSP of the year' at the Scottish Politician of the Year awards. (Image: Scottish Parliament) I have always commended him as the hardest working politician I have known in my time as editor, after he was elected in 2007 by a margin of only 48 votes over Labour's Allan Wilson. I recall bumping into him on a Sunday morning in Largs as he single-handedly did a leaflet drop around town.

I had to applaud him in the recent gender reform debates when the 63-year-old spoke against 'anatomical males' in women's prisons, saying: "If a fox said it was a chicken, would you put it in a henhouse?"

Last year MSP Russell Findlay was nominated as the 'one to watch.'  It was a canny foresight as he has just been installed as the new Conservative leader at Holyrood.