Apathy stalks streets of Soho

Restuarant worker Peter Lamb: No time

By CNN's Douglas Herbert

LONDON, England - Rickshaw driver Tony Aldred is unrepentant about being among the landslide minority that sat out the UK elections.

"I don't believe in any of the political parties involved," said Aldred, 19, trumpeting his political apathy for all to hear as he manned his rickshaw amid the din of late-night revelry in London's Soho district.

"They are totally out for the rich and not for the poor, they are totally out for themselves. I've been looking at all the political parties, and I've had enough of all the waffle…They just constantly tell lies."

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Aldred is one of some 18 million voters that early surveys suggested stayed at home on Thursday, rather than heeding Tony Blair's election-eve plea to perform their democratic duty by casting a ballot.

At a projected 63 percent, turnout was at the lowest level since the end of World War I, when women did not have the vote, and 10 percent down from voting levels in 1997, when the Labour Party crushed the Conservatives, ending an 18-year Tory hold on power.

Putting Labour's landslide in perspective, only an estimated 11 million of Britain's 44 million registered voters -- or about one quarter of the electorate -- actually cast a ballot for the party that claims to represent "one nation".

"This is something of a medium-scale wake-up call for the health of British democracy," said Shamit Saggar, a political scientist at University of London.

Far from a blip in electoral dynamics, Saggar said Thursday's low turnout marked a dramatic "bumping down" from the last election, when 70 percent of the electorate voted.

Unscientific survey

The key question, he added, was whether the low turnout was down to general complacency or a boycott of particular parties.

Others said voting was vital.

"If you want to say something, you have to vote," said Diane Amos, 33, echoing the sentiments of her friend, Sian Harris, who said: "People have fought for the right to vote. I have to (vote), and if I don't I have no right to complain about the government."

Some who failed to vote, such as Peter Lamb, a 21-year-old restaurant worker, sounded almost apologetic.

"I couldn't get to the voting station at work…I do care I just didn't have the time to vote, and the party that I wanted to win was going to win anyway."

--Photographs by Sarah Sultoon