EDUCATION, education, education, does it feel like over 20 years ago that Tony Blair made that famous speech?

Today in 2017 education remains a key, in fact number one priority for the Scottish Government and our Inverclyde Council.

Over the past 10 years we have invested over one quarter of a billion pounds on Inverclyde’s school estate, granted I have concerns about the profits companies are making from some of the funding schemes.

I am hopeful that we will find a way, soon, to get out of some of these contracts and save the council money.

I’ve never wanted to have anything better than anyone else but have always strived to campaign for Inverclyde to have as good of an offering as everyone else.

However, when it comes to Inverclyde’s school estate we should all be proud to say that it is indeed the best in Scotland.

I think back to my school days in the 90s when Tony Blair made that speech, but it was all rhetoric.

When I left high school in 2004, the number one accessory of an Inverclyde janitor was his trusted bucket to catch the rain that came through leaking roofs.

Since 2007 Inverclyde Council, working in partnership with the Scottish Government, has transformed the physical landscape of our schools estate for the better; a Labour run council and an SNP Scottish Government throughout this period.

As I have said before, this is the age of co-operative politics and you just need to look to Inverclyde’s school estates to see what can be accomplished.

However world class schools don’t create a world class education system. Inverclyde’s teachers, schools staff, and, the parents and guardians of Inverclyde’s children, equally have a major part to play.

The SNP have made closing the educational attainment gap a top priority – that is making sure that regardless of your background every child attains the same in school.

I was delighted to see John Swinney – the cabinet secretary for education – visit the area this week to see for himself the difference funding the Scottish Government have already given to Inverclyde is making.

I am sure people of all political backgrounds were very pleased to learn of a further £3 million of funding for us to carry out more excellent work locally.

Inverclyde is leading the way across Scotland in this field. It’s another great example of the positive outcomes the council and the Scottish Government can continue to achieve together.

I noticed some comments I made about changing our attitudes towards alcohol have sparked a debate, the sort of debate that this paper provides a great forum to have – see the  regular letters page.

In the past fortnight I’ve read more comments on social media and spoken to more people about this issue than any other raised in the past two years.

Ideas on how to improve our alcohol culture and suggestions on activities for young people that will engage with those that we aren’t currently engaging with.

Regardless of your opinion, I believe that the current laws that apparently allow a child to consume alcohol at home from the age of five, or 16/17 year olds to consume alcohol with an adult in a pub (with food) hardly encourage young people to wait until they are 18 to drink – at which point they can buy any product they want.

That simply doesn’t make sense. Perhaps adopting a new approach that incorporates education into the debate would.