Kathy Sheridan in affluent Broadway, Worcestershire, where apathy runs deep.
At the foot of the Cotswolds lies a 15th century village of such buttery-hued beauty that it's difficult to shake off the feeling of a theme park. As an American magazine once put it: "Nowhere can the ideal of Old England be found so perfectly preserved or so untouched by modern improvements as Broadway. There is scarcely a house which hasn't been painted by a famous artist, there isn't a chimney or doorway which hasn't been sketched."
They've worked hard in Broadway to make it appear untouched by time - and not just architecturally. The library (and only public internet resource) is open only every other day. The police station shuts down for the weekend.
The houses have names such as Cottar's Hey, Mullions and - this being the home of the North Cotswold Hunt - Beagle Cottage. Muted posters in olde shoppe windows advertise such attractions as the pig roast at Broadway Horse Trials, an evening "of musical splendour with local flautist extraordinaire . . ."
The chosen mode of transport is the Land Rover Discovery or Mercedes station wagon and the age profile is "approximately 93", to quote the irreverent Lib Dem council candidate, Michael Gordon-Smith.
So far Gordon-Smith is distinguished by his absence from the ultra-discreet sprinkling of election posters along the high street. These are erected on stakes in people's gardens and merely name the Conservative candidates for parliament and Wychavon Council. Gordon-Smith has counted about 17 of these posters for his only council rival and just one for himself. And that one - to no one's surprise - is outside the Indian restaurant, owned by a family of Muslims.
Broadway is the sort of place where hounds are plentiful, black faces are scarce and locals are wont to peer into your garden as they pass and (according to blow-in Gordon-Smith) wonder aloud "if the locals have accepted you yet"?
On the other hand, if you happen to be from one of the two former council estates, they may not deign to peer at you at all. As for political diversity, the county council boasts all of two Labour seats out of 45 - "and those two are from Droitwich, which is the overspill from Redditch, so you'd expect that", says Gordon-Smith. The Lib Dems, however, have 12.
The rest of course are Tory. Since 1992, the MP - and subsequently, assistant Tory chief whip - is Peter Luff and he neither needs nor bothers to canvass, apparently.
A woman who has run a tea shoppe for more than 10 years claims she hasn't once been asked for her vote. "People vote with no rationality or thought given to it. A farmer said to me the other day that the Conservatives could put up a blue, two-headed donkey and they'd still vote for it," says Gordon-Smith.
"I've canvassed all the villages and the apathy is frightening. I've had more response from the dogs [ he has been bitten twice].
His point is borne out around the town. "This is quite an affluent area and very conservative," says Dan Eaves (29), a racing driver, engaged in restoring an old property. "You always feel there's no point in voting around here."
He sounds like a Labour voter. He approved of the move to autonomy for the Bank of England; he supports the war and Blair's "right to make the call". In fact, he's "quite happy". "But I can see New Labour moving back to traditional Labour, taxing the rich to feed the poor, that sort of thing . . . But the reason I will not vote Labour is because of Europe. We are giving much, much more than we get."
A trawl reveals two women (both blow-ins) who plan to vote Labour, though neither can remember the name of the candidate. No one seems to consider the Lib Dems.
"They're more left-wing than Labour," says Nigel Robinson, whose family has run Treasure Trove, a gift shop, for more than 50 years. He cites Lib Dem policies on taxes, Iraq, immigration controls and the euro as evidence. In fact, it's Europe that is really niggling Nigel. Last time, he voted UKIP. "It was a protest vote. But I wouldn't do it this time. It's too important." So it's back to the Conservatives for law and order, taxation, smaller government and a sterling/dollar exchange rate that will restore his American mail-order business.
Amid it all, fox-hunting bans hardly raise their head, even in the home of the hunt, where feverish mass meetings were the order of the day a few months ago. One farmer looks frankly bemused by the question. "Well, the reason no one is bringing it up is because we're, well, we're just carrying on," he snorts happily. "It's a terrible law, an ill-thought-out class-based law dreamt up by socialists. And it's a terrible law because it's being ignored and that will lead to other laws being ignored."
Peter Luff can sleep easy in his bed.