Opinion

People are more interested in politics – the evidence shows

Jeremy Corbyn MP visiting NTS (Norfolk Training Services), talking to students with Clive Lewis MP. Picture: ANTONY KELLY Archant Norfolk 2016

I have never reported on a political visit quite like the one conducted by Jeremy Corbyn in Norwich the other day.

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Party leaders are usually flanked by minders, the press ordered to stand at arms’ length before being given a rushed question at the end before the party hierarchy disappear in a puff of smoke and you are all left wondering what actually happened.

Not so with Mr Corbyn’s visit to Norwich where he meandered around the various workshops of Norfolk Training Services engaging apprentices on whether they liked it or not.

So long was the visit that the television crews had to leave before the leader of the opposition did to get back in time for their bulletins – something almost unheard of.

Fortunately I had time to follow him around the various work stations and find out what those he had spoken to made of it all.

I questioned one carpentry apprentice about how he might vote in the upcoming local elections – after all that is what the leader was in Norwich for.

“I’m not that knowledgeable about politics,” he said. “I am a bystander.”

He added: “He [Jeremy Corbyn] was more interested in what I am doing than what his campaign was about.”

I pushed. What do you think of him as the new Labour leader? “No offence to him, I don’t know much about him?,” he said.

Do you want to know more? “50-50,” was the retort.

Finding out the view from beyond the obsessive and febrile Westminster atmosphere can sometimes be a similar experience, but over the last year it has been striking – anecdotally – how much more interested in politics people are.

I found myself sitting in a pew at a wedding on Saturday waiting for the bride to arrive talking about Prime Minister’s Questions with an old school friend.

She was fascinated by the world of Westminster.

The research seems to back this up. The latest “Audit of Public Engagement” by the think tank the Hansard Society found for the first time there had been a positive shift. They found that just over half of those they spoke to now claimed to know at least a “fair amount”. We have the highest ever percentage (73pc) agreeing that “parliament is essential to our democracy” and similarly, the highest figure recorded (58pc) agreeing that parliament “debates and makes decisions about issues that matter to me”.

Even more heartening was the notable finding that the percentage of 18 to 24-year-olds saying they would be certain to vote in a general election was up from 16pc to 39pc in a year.

But there is a long way to go and we live in unique time having just had a general election and careering towards a referendum.

This needs to be sustained – in a good way.