Alexander - poll warning

A key architect of Labour's 2001 election victory has warned that the party's own heartland voters are among those most disengaged from politics.

Writing in the centre-left magazine, "Renewal", Douglas Alexander alerts Labour to the "uncomfortable truth" that by failing to connect it is rapidly becoming the party of apathy.

"The uncomfortable truth is that people for whom Labour stands and who stand to gain most from our re-election were often the most disengaged from politics," he states.

The industry minister rejects the argument that the low general election turnout among party supporters and the young was due to the poll's foregone conclusion.

"The fall of the turnout in June challenges us to look anew at how we practise our politics. Too often, tried and tested campaign techniques have left voters feeling the political parties are talking at them rather than with them," he writes.

His warning that a one-size-fits-all political message and glitzy mass marketing may herald a shift in Millbank campaigning style with a turn to "substance" and a new focus on local issues and direct contact with the electorate.

The spin culture of election campaigns, he believes, has generated a cycle of disenchantment. He said politics had become "an increasingly arid interaction that leaves journalists ever more frustrated, the politicians ever more wary and the public ever more cynical".

He warns that disengagement could be disproportionately dangerous for Labour and suggests that voter turn-off rather than turn-out could lead to a new class divide.

The MP, seen as a Labour risisng star, says that voting could become the "habit of suburban, higher income and higher educated households".