Apathy wins the day
Derek Brown looks at how the low turnout affects the results
Friday May 5, 2000
The winners are crowing over their triumph, and the losers are
scornfully dismissing any suggestion of defeat. It was ever thus in
electoral politics where the outcome, however cut and dried, tends
to lie in the eye of the beholder.
To Labour, the loss of more than 500 council seats is "containable".
For the Tories, the loss of the Romsey byelection to the Liberal
Democrats is less important than Labour's loss of its deposit.
But the bombast and special pleading cannot conceal the most
significant figure to emerge from Thursday's welter of polling: two
thirds of the electorate couldn't be bothered to take part.
Even in the London mayoral election, the most publicised contest in
recent political history, the turnout was a dismal 35%. Elsewhere in
England, it averaged rather less. In one district, electors were so
indifferent that only 14% cast their votes.
The abysmal turnout badly undermines the efforts of psephologists to
extrapolate the likely outcome of the next general election. The
council results are also skewed by the fact that Labour was
defending a swathe of seats captured in 1996, when Conservative
fortunes were at their lowest ebb.
In that context, the Labour loss of 546 seats and the Tory gain of
542 merely returns the two big parties to a more natural balance in
their respective heartlands. As a pointer to national voting
intentions, the swing is no more significant than the LibDem's
ostensible triumph in capturing 28% of the popular vote - just two
percentage points behind Labour.
In a deeper sense, though, the turnout must be deeply disappointing
to all the parties, and especially to the government. Since 1997 it
has made great play of its intention to revive popular participation
in politics, through devolution and other constitutional reforms.
For the latest elections, the normally rigid polling conventions
were relaxed, and local authorities were allowed to experiment with
new procedures. They included electronic counting - which went
embarrassingly wrong in the London mayoral poll - mobile polling
booths, weekend and week-long voting.
None of the innovations had much of an impact. English voters, it
seems, neither approve nor disapprove of their local councils.
Londoners are not convinced that it matters whose bottom is on the
new mayoral chair. For all the huffing and puffing of the political
leaders, elections are still decided not so much by the popular
will, as by the lack of it.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
Warm regards
George Pennefather
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