This town is coming like a ghost town

The lyrics of that brilliant Specials song kept running through my mind yesterday as the European elections got underway. I woke up this morning with the words still there and realised why. It was because a ghost town is what Glasgow felt like yesterday as the voters stayed away from the polling places in their droves. The silence was deafening and the polling places I visited late last night reported turnouts of 25% at most. Some were as low as 13% and this was in an area which normally has a higher than average turnout. Family looking after polling places in Port Glasgow reported 15% in a text at 9pm with only an hour till close of poll. My guess is that the overall turnout will be little over 20%. Given that it was 40% last time, this shocking result alone ought to be enough for Gordon Brown to call it a day and call a general election. The people have spoken, now let's start listening to them.