A BAKER'S dozen - that's how many options residents have in next Thursday's European Parliament elections.

And maybe recent election apathy will be dispelled by the number and range of policies on offer, from Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party to the far Right views of the British National Party.

A party is what we are asked to vote for this time, not an individual, as the former Euro constituencies are being replaced by large regions.

There are ten seats up for grabs in the North West, which, for the first time, will be decided by proportional voting instead of "first past the post". The idea is that each party will get a share of the seats which roughly matches the share of the votes they get.

MEPs are elected on a party list system. When the votes are counted for the first time, whichever party gets the most votes across the region gets an MEP elected, the one at the top of its list of ten candidates. The winning party's score is then reduced and the votes counted again, and a second MEP chosen. This goes on until all ten regional seats have been allocated.

The Euro elections are held every five years, and the European Parliament is the only one of the three Euro institutions to be directly elected by the people of each of the 15 EU countries. There are 626 MEPs and the UK elects 87 of them.

The full list of parties is: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, British National Party, Green Party, Liberal Party, Natural Law Party, Pro-Euro Conservative Party, Socialist Labour Party, UK Independence Party, Weekly Worker, plus two individuals standing under the respective banners of the Anti-Corruption Pro-Family Christian Alliance and the English Independent Humanist Party.

Bury's elections officer Debbie Proctor is pictured showing off the new Euro ballot form which gives residents a choice of 13 boxes in which to make their one cross.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.