THE POLITICAL pundits will have their work cut out looking for portents in the results of today's council elections.

For, despite the commendable early moves by the government to blow away the apathy that invariably surrounds municipal polls, the traditional widespread unconcern will no doubt mean that, generally, it will be the mood of a more politically-active minority that can be assessed rather than that of ordinary voters.

This apathy condemns most voters to suffer the kind of local government they are later wont to complain about.

But, in some senses, they cannot be blamed for ignoring these elections when they can see in advance that the influence of their vote is blunted.

That is the case where councils are controlled by a hugely-dominant party and only a minority of the seats may change hands at a single election.

As a result, voters know there is little or nothing they can do to change the balance of power, so they do not bother to turn out.

See, for instance, the situation in East Lancashire today when, in two of our six boroughs, there are no polls at all and in the remainder only a third of the seats are up for election.

If nothing else, the government's local government reforms ought to embrace proposals for all council seats being up for grabs at every municipal election.

As it is, today's counts up and down the country will prove a poor measure of local democracy and a difficult yardstick by which to judge the parties nationally.

Labour's high rating in the opinion polls is hardly likely to take much of a knock - except, perhaps, in those local authorities where the party is involved in alleged corruption scandals.

Its main drawback today is likely to be the complacency that encourages Labour voters to stay at home.

The Liberal Democrats, though still a sideshow nationally, may be encouraged again by a repeat of the party's firm showing in the local elections.

But the real test is for the battered Tories.

Can they, against the background of a remarkably popular Labour government at Westminster, show any signs of a comeback at local authority level today?

Certainly, they need to - if only for their own morale and to add credibility to William Hague's so-far-lacklustre leadership.

Their best hope must be that the endemic council election apathy is more rife today among Labour voters than their own.

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