In britain's last general election, the supposedly momentous one of 1997, which returned Labour to power after 18 years in the wilderness, only about 70% of eligible voters bothered to turn out, the lowest percentage since the second world war. If there is one certainty (apart from its result) about the election due on June 7th, it is that, throughout the campaign, politicians will wring their hands, make pious utterances about the growing cynicism of the electorate, and agonise aloud about whether a low turnout on voting day should be taken to signify some sort of crisis in democracy. They will preach through megaphones on abruptly emptying street corners, wondering why so few shoppers stop to listen. Perhaps politicians are talking about the wrong subjects? Perhaps voters have lost faith in the power of governments to change their lives? Does the problem arise from the atomisation of society; or from the re-alignment of political parties; or from the de-alignment of social classes; or from some ineffable post-modern condition involving an exquisite interaction between all of the above?
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