I’ll be honest, I couldn’t face writing this week’s column on what is probably the biggest news of the week: the council tax rises.

What is there to say that hasn’t already been said?

It seems like our contributions go up every year and services are either barely maintained at their same levels or cut back anyway. Equally it is getting harder to see where money can be saved without losing a service or facility vital to parts of our community.

It’s become tougher to understand or justify and at a certain point it just seems like Joe Public is giving more and more and getting less and less back.

So instead I’m going to write about the loss of one of my favourite parts of working in the media: Election night.

No overnight Scottish Parliament election counts this year

This year, the Scottish Parliament elections will not be decided in the wee hours of a Friday morning. Instead the vote count will begin at 9am on the day after voters head to the polls.

The Electoral Management Board for Scotland, which is in charge of holding elections in Scotland, has said that this change is designed to increase public engagement and reduce........

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