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MANY YOUNG BRITISH VOTERS ASK: WHY BOTHER?
(128K/10 sec. AIFF or WAV sound) LONDON (CNN) -- Talk to young Londoners about their role in the coming election, and one concern comes up over and over. It's not about how others their age might vote. It's about whether they'll even bother.
"Yeah, most people are not voting,' says Darren, 23, a bicycle messenger stopping off in London's financial district. He's sad, because "we've lost a lot of power in the youth."
To the west, in trendy Soho, a 25-year-old businesswoman named Anna is angry. "Loads of people aren't voting." She says that's "criminal."
"People died to give you the right to vote," she says vehemently.
2.5 million young Britons may stay home
Many her age aren't so passionate. Published reports say that 43 per cent of British voters under 25 didn't take part in the last election. This time, more than 2.5 million young voters are expected to stay away, out of 5.2 million.
(160K/12 sec. AIFF or WAV sound) Why the low numbers? The young people interviewed plan to vote, but say apathy and distrust are common. So is a sense that voting changes nothing. After 18 years of Tory government, many only have dim memories of anything else.
But there's also concern that key policy questions get drowned out by frantic media coverage and political bickering.
Anna's 22-year-old colleague, Richard, is skeptical about what the political parties say.
"How can they create so much government expenditure without increasing taxes, for instance?" he asks. "I'd be quite happy to pay more tax if that would filter through to better education, better health."
Parties aren't providing leadership
(160K/14 sec. AIFF or WAV sound) And Balbar, 24, a London finance worker, believes the parties aren't taking a firm stand on joining the single European currency out of fear of losing votes. "No one is actually giving a dominant answer," he says.
Education and the government-run National Health Service come up often. And most feel that the leading Labour and the Conservative parties have grown too much alike.
"It's a bit worrying that they're not really saying anything different," says 29-year-old Tabby, standing outside a Soho pub with her fellow media workers Jane and Anne Marie. "They're not giving us any huge alternatives to what we've got at the moment."
(192K/17 sec. AIFF or WAV sound) Sixteen percent of the country's voters are under 25. Not enough to control the election's outcome, but enough to make a difference -- if they vote.
"I think most people think that they haven't got a chance of changing anything,' says Darren, getting ready to head out into traffic again.
"They don't realize that their vote really does count."
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