VOTING

Nothing frightens councillors as much as a low turnout. However badly they behave, they need to feel that the public supports the system. None of the main parties really deserves our votes.

* Labour despises the voters and parliament. They market themselves ruthlessly, irrespective of the truth.

* The Conservatives are quite prepared to run down our public services still further in pursuit of electoral advantage.

* The Liberal Democrats are the cuddly party, who think that being nice to everyone will bring about a happier world.

All the parties wimp out of realistic discussion of serious issues likes drugs, or euthanasia. So do we vote for the least bad party, or do we show our contempt for them all by staying away? Councillors claim to deplore apathy. This is not because of some high minded dedication to the democratic process (our democracy is feeble anyway). Like most things councillors say, it is a selfish means to their end, which is a good election result. Abstention tells them they just have not been doing well enough for any of them to deserve your vote. If you vote, you buy into their system. More importantly, it shows you accept their standards. Abstention may show antipathy to the lot of them.

Lining up at polling stations to place votes in a ballot box at elections may soon become a thing of the past in Derby. Instead, residents in the city could be asked to elect councillors by putting their vote in the post at their own convenience - but only if the voters say that is what they want to do. Recent figures show that fewer people are making the effort to vote at local elections. The turnout for this year's local elections in May was 30.6%, which was 2.7% lower than 2002.

Now, in a bid to encourage more people to vote, Derby City Council's scrutiny management commission is considering carrying out a survey to see what people in Derby think about all-postal voting. The commission is expected to give the go-ahead to proposals to pay an independent consultant £4,000 to conduct 500 telephone interviews to establish the public's views. The move comes as part of a drive by the Electoral Commission, which local promotes democracy, to encourage all local authority elections to be carried out this way.

A number of people in Derby have already tried voting by post. In 2002, 6,000 people applied for a postal vote and in May this year that figure rose to more than 12,000 out of a total of 166,000 people eligible to vote. Councillor Richard Smalley, chairman of the scrutiny management commission, said, "Research has shown that there's an increase when postal voting is used. However, the research that's been done so far shows that it wouldn't really encourage people who are already disaffected by the democratic process. We need to find a way to re-engage the population and get them involved."

In 2001, the council tested opinion on different ways of voting through the Derby Pointer Panel, which is used as a sounding board on policy issues and is designed to accurately reflect how people in the city feel about a range of topics. The survey showed the public thought more people would vote if they could do so on the internet, vote on more than one day and if there were polling stations in supermarkets. MORI recently carried out a survey of the local authorities which carried out pilot schemes of all-postal votes in May, which included East Staffordshire and Chesterfield.

The British National Party is to fight for seats on Derby City Council for the first time and the move has appalled members of the city council, who claim the BNP is racist and will not gain any support in Derby. Conservative deputy city council leader Philip Hickson viewed the BNP's intentions for Derby with "horror" saying, "It's a racist party completely at odds with mainstream political activity and there's absolutely no hope for it in Derby."

Councillor Chris Williamson, the council's Labour group leader, added, "What the BNP has attempted to do in recent years is give a veneer of respectability. But the reality of its policies is outside what people in Derby would have any support for. Derby is a very tolerant city and I don't think it would have any truck with a vile right-wing party like this."

Derbyshire BNP organiser Sadie Graham said, "We're planning to field a number of candidates right across Derby and Amber Valley. We're not racist, all we're doing is standing up for the rights and wishes of British people who need a voice."