Public turns its back on politics

May 5 2008 By Sarah Evans

I always remember on May Day, a story my grandmother used to tell my sister and me on our childhood visits to her home in Aberdare.

She would tell us about the May chapel parades. The parade started at the chapel at the top of the valley. All the congregation marched out, singing, dressed in their best chapel clothes, the little girls in white dresses.

As the parade wound its way down the valley each chapel lower down would join in behind until finally the enormous procession all singing, arrived at the park in Aberdare.

The huge communal involvement and visual spectacle were conjured before our eyes and my grandmother would sometimes embellish her description with accounts of the rivalries between the different chapels.

Communities are never all smooth sailing.

One of the other strong impressions my grandmother embedded in us was political. You had to vote. To not vote was quite simply shameful.

It is hard to imagine that my grandmother grew up when women didn't have a vote.

When I mention that to young people now, they look at me as though I am from the Ark.

And I know why. It seems to them an inconceivably different world.

The voter turnout in last week's polls was about 35% going as low as 7% in some places.

Every time we have elections there are pleas from politicians to get out and at least put a cross somewhere and there's discussion of how other countries have managed a higher turnout.

The huge significance of elections has been headline news more or less constantly in the last few months, thanks to Zimbabwe and Kenya.

We should be in a state of permanent gratitude that we can go to a polling station with no fear of violence.

So why do less than half of us choose to vote in local elections? Even in the contest for mayor in London, a drama that fascinated not just those in London and Westminster but has been regional and international news too, the turnout was only 45%.

Perhaps people just think democracy is like the sun and moon - for ever there, whether they use it or not. Perhaps they make a choice - "What's it to be tonight"?

Go out and make a contribution to the political process or stay in and play Grand Theft Auto 4 instead?'

Or have they studied the party leaflets that have come through the door in detail, read of the tireless efforts of present incumbents to eliminate graffiti, litter and gun crime and the noble aspirations for the future concerning trees, police officers and drunkenness - and then thought, "Can't be bothered"?

Or perhaps they heard David Cameron's admission last week that he had not been able to deliver on ending "Punch and Judy" politics - a failure he went on to demonstrate with flair, clarity and precision in Prime Minister's Question Time.

Commenting after that particular performance, Liberal Democrat MP Julia Goldsworthy described the language used as "more suited to the playground". This is the one opportunity a week to hold the Prime Minister to account and I think a lot of rowdiness is a sad reflection on the behaviour in the House of Commons'.

Perhaps the voters thought, "I'll go and yell insults at the wife and children instead of traipsing down to the polling station".

Why can't David Cameron end the Punch and Judy show? He just has to stop doing it.

Perhaps people are alienated by the strangely quaint world of the church hall and wooden booths.

No 48 inch screens in sight. No pulsating chords hurling sound. No interaction. No buttons to punch. No Facebook to check out before, or even better, while you are marking your paper.

No milling crowds of feral teenagers. Nothing to buy or try on or try out. Not a Subway, Starbucks, McDonald's or Pizza Express in sight. No happy hour offers. Indeed no bargain offers at all.

Perhaps we all fear that any moment a Welsh chapel congregation might sweep down upon us and we will be engulfed in a world where religion and politics still have a meaning and there's a shared language. And so we stay away.