It is market day in Ely, a small city in Cambridgeshire. Locals throng stalls selling vegetables, Christmas decorations and old records. Only a few want to talk to the gaggle of Conservative Party activists urging them to support their candidate. Without breaking step, a man and a woman tell a campaigner that they are not local residents-odd, another remarks, as he could have sworn they live in his street. "They're all in it for themselves," says a brawny stallholder of politicians generally. Many Britons want nothing to do with politics. In the hard-fought 2010 general election some 16m people eligible to vote did not do so. Turnout is lowest among the poor and the young. Ipsos mori, a pollster, thinks only 58% of the working-class electorate voted in 2010, compared with 76% of professionals. Turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds was just 44%. Following a series of scandals over mps' expenses claims and a brutal economic slump, some reject politics on a point of principle. "No thanks, I don't vote" is a common comment on doorsteps, canvassers say.
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