How interested are you in politics? I guess that you are quite interested in stories about the way that some MP’s seem to abuse their allowances, but that’s not the same as being interested in politics. The trouble is that the coverage which is very rightly given to people who are ripping off the system, or to spin doctors who invent lies about their political opponents, tends to taint the whole business of politics and Government.

It’s perhaps hardly surprising that fewer and fewer people seem to care much about how the country is actually being run. The fact that regular articles by local MP’s have been shunted off the pages of the East Grinstead Observer and onto the website may be just a further example of flagging interest; although I am ready to be persuaded that the real reason is that the stuff we have been submitting is just too boring to merit space in the paper.

The trouble is that what happens in Parliament or in the Town Hall does matter. Decisions taken by politicians about the economy, education, the environment, healthcare, crime and international affairs really do affect the quality of all our lives. There is also evidence to show that countries in which people feel more engaged with the political process are better managed and more contented – which probably comes to the same thing.

I have been looking at a survey of British attitudes towards politics which has just been published by the Hansard Society, the non-partisan political research charity. For those who like to browse statistics, they can be found at www.hansardsociety.org.uk. The survey challenges some widely held pre-conceptions. For example, which age group would you have thought had most people saying that they had engaged in some recent political activity beyond just voting? Well, it’s people aged 45 to 54. The age group least interested is 18 to 24 year olds. So much for student activism.

It was also interesting to note that although a high number, 87%, of people said that they thought that it was “essential or important” to vote in order to demonstrate good citizenship, only 53% said that they would definitely vote in a General Election. 34% of people surveyed said that joining a political party was either “very or fairly important” to being a good citizen; but only 3% had actually signed up, or donated, to any political party in the past three years.

There’s an obvious disconnect; and it doesn’t only apply to national politics. 73% said they felt that they had little or no influence over decisions taken in their local area. That’s quite depressing, but the curious thing is that few people seem to mind; at least not enough to do anything about it. Half of those questioned said that they didn’t want to be involved in local decisions anyway.

Maybe we are just too busy to be bothered, or maybe we are too cynical to think that active citizenship can make a difference. But a democracy in which people lose interest in how they are governed only encourages bad politicians, bad decisions and bad government.