Voting apathy 'among worst in UK'

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By Mark McGregor BBC News, Manchester

Manchester central is a solidly Labour ward

It was the birthplace of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and played a pivotal role in the fight for voting rights for women and the working classes.

But it seems the people of Greater Manchester are losing their taste for politics.

In the last three general elections - in 1997, 2001 and 2005 - an average of 41% of the electorate across the region did not vote.

That represents the second highest level of absenteeism in the UK, according to the University of Sheffield's Changing UK study.

The report was commissioned by the BBC to look at the ways in which the nation's communities have changed over the past 40 years.

Researchers found neighbourhoods becoming polarised, with people increasingly living among others similar to them in terms of age, class and wealth, leading to feelings of isolation and - significantly for Greater Manchester - political apathy.

In the 1945, 1950 and 1951 elections the area was in the top 10 most politically engaged - with an average abstention rate of 18%.

A low turnout is really down to the failure of parties to mobilise voters Dr David Cutts, University of Manchester

However, the number of people failing to vote accelerated in the period covering Tony Blair's hat trick of election victories between 1997 and 2005.

Those who played a role in Manchester's rich political history during the 19th Century may well be turning in their graves.

The region developed its taste for radical politics in the wake of the Peterloo Massacre, when a peaceful protest of people calling for the right to vote was brutally stamped down.

Local militia on horseback charged the protesters gathered on St Peter's Fields and cut them down with sabres, leaving at least 11 dead and many injured.

From there grew the seeds of working class political engagement, characterised from individuals such as suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst to the thousands who gathered in Kersal Moor, Salford, to elect delegates to the first Chartist convention.

The legacy is an almost solidly Labour-supporting electorate. A general election results map of Greater Manchester reveals only four pockets of alternative colour in Cheadle, Hazel Grove, Withington and Rochdale.

Subsequent political movements grew from the Peterloo Massacre

According to Dr David Cutts, of the University of Manchester's Institute for Social Change, it is the failure of modern political activists to rally support that lies in the voting decline.

"A low turnout is really down to the failure of parties to mobilise voters," he told BBC News.

"The key thing about the Greater Manchester area is if you look at the number of seats they are essentially very safe Labour constituencies.

"It's the safe Labour seats where turnout has been particularly low and that has grown over these three election periods."

Modern political parties, Dr Cutts argues, now ignore traditional, grass roots activity in favour of hitting the "100 or so" marginal constituencies that win or lose elections.

If parties are not actively engaging their traditional supporters, this helps to explain why levels of absenteeism across Greater Manchester is higher than the majority of the UK, he says.

Extremist vote

"Party activity has declined a huge amount in these areas, they tend to just mobilise people who are fairly interested to vote, who are likely to vote, and get them out.

"Over an election cycle there is just no stimulus for these people [traditional supporters] to vote, they have become disaffected in a sense, and alienated."

But despite the report terming this decline "political apathy", Dr Cutts argues this might not be the case.

"Lower turnout does not necessarily mean people are apathetic, often it might mean that people are contented and they only turn out when they have something to vote against," he said.

But these protest votes, coupled with increasing numbers of alienated Labour supporters, could have implications for the party and Greater Manchester's political makeup.

"In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s Labour candidates were stacking up votes of 30,000 people, now people like Hazel Blears are winning on 13,000 or 14,000 votes," said Dr Cutts.

"Such Labour seats could be vulnerable to say an individual candidate or a more extremist candidate who has a more mobilised base.

"That could happen in seats like Salford, Eccles or some of the Manchester seats," he added.