LAST week I wore a purple crocus to FMQs to celebrate Rotary in Scotland’s work and support World Polio Day which they organise. 

Rotary International initiated the End Polio Now campaign in 1985 when there were 350,000 cases of polio across 125 countries, and now in 2017, there have only been around 10 cases so far this year in two countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

The world nears eradicating a horrific disease for only the second time in history, and I’m glad to have been able to show my support for this amazing feat in the Scottish Parliament.

Some of my constituents were in attendance of Thursday’s FMQs and I encourage any other constituents who wish to go along to contact me and I can arrange this for them.


Tomorrow marks Halloween and the end of Inverclyde’s Galoshans Festival. Well done to everyone involved in making the event a success. 

I’m delighted that Inverclyde boasts such wonderful talent and facilities for local festivals to take place, and hope everyone who attended the festival found it spook-tacular!

I got into the spirit of things and once again did the pumpkin carving this weekend and have joined with Zero Waste Scotland to tackle the frightful number of pumpkins wasted every Halloween. 

Research shows over 1.1 million pumpkins were thrown away last year — that’s enough to stretch from Edinburgh to Stornoway — which could have been eaten. 

Therefore, I’m encouraging people to try and cook or bake their pumpkin remains — recipes can be found on Zero Waste Scotland’s website.