A lot of hard work make European Elections worthwhile!

Polls have closed and we must now all wait to see how the electorate in East Renfrewshire voted in the European Elections.

An early start for the whole Conservative team, under slightly gray skies, was followed by a lot of hard work manning polling stations, knocking out pledge voters and providing lifts to polls. Ultimately this all proved very worthwhile - with positive feedback from those we met and a great deal of encouragement from the statistics we gleaned from ballot box voting numbers.

And today provided so many people in East Renfrewshire with a golden opportunity to pass judgement on the attitude and failures of a Labour MP, MSP and Council administration who are completely out of touch with the mood and attitudes of their electorate. In Clarkston, Carolside parents were able to protest about Labour increasing class sizes. In Giffnock, Woodfarm and Thornliebank residents vented their fury at a Labour Party prepared to continue to propose selling off parks for residential house building in the Local Plan. In Eaglesham & Waterfoot we found continued opposition amongst voters to the Council proposed Eaglesham Hub. While in Netherlee there was a massive increase in voting between 6pm and 10pm, during which time in some cases the number of votes cast doubled, as local people were motivated to get out and vote.

From our own figures it is clear that, excluding postal votes, Netherlee won the prize for the area with the largest turnout while Neilston surprised us with the lowest turnout after a very promising start.

Whatever Sunday evenings result holds in store the one thing that won today was the democratic process of the UK. I have a number of concerns about the way the election was conducted today but in the end it is not about those of us in political parties it is about the people we entrust to use their vote wisely. Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote and let's hope that the six MEP's we return from Scotland do us proud no matter which political party they represent!