First bring democracy to Iraq – and then Surrey

"I voted for you this morning. In fact, I voted for you seven times." Ah, democracy at work.

The coalition forces in the last few weeks have been arriving in Iraq to "liberate the people" and bring democracy to their doorstep. This is, of course, a new idea. Originally we were going for another reason: to look for naughty weapons which haven't, as I write, been found.

The Iraqi minister of information, with his creative sue of language, has become a cult figure in this country but I also liked the hapless assistant who was asked how things were going in Basra. He shrugged his shoulders and said simply: "Is mess." Things are a mess at the moment but I am of course in favour of bringing democracy to the area.

It is a splendid thing. It is a little curious, though, that it should come as a gift from George W Bush, the American president who rather famously didn't win his election. It has a ring of the response given by former Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza to an opponent who accused him of rigging elections: "Indeed you won the elections, but I won the count." (In case you've forgotten, Somoza was a rather unsavoury dictator.)

Can I just say, while we're on the subject of George W, that I have enjoyed some of his pronouncements on the world at large. I was particularly pleased when, at a press conference last year with the Turkish prime minister, George announced: "And today, I'm informing the prime minister that we're lifting the travel ban on Turkey." Which would have been lovely if there had been a travel ban in the first place.

In this country, local elections are about to rise up and attract our attention. I keep getting poorly printed leaflets through my door saying Conservative councillors were sorry to have missed me when they called.

I live in the community and I want to have a say in how it is run – which makes me a bit of a statistical oddity. The turnout at the last English local elections was 33%

I expect they will get over it. If I had been in, though, they would have found me chatty. I care a lot about the local elections; partly because, as I have a Danish passport, they are the only UK political contest I am allowed to participate in. I love going down to the polling station and making my mark. I live in the community and I want to have a say in how it is run – which, of course, makes me a bit of a statistical oddity. The turnout at the last English local elections was 33% and just 24% of people voted in the last European elections in 1999.

And that's not saying that people are just not interested in the local incinerator project or the phasing of the traffic lights on the high street. Turnout at the last general election dropped to an 80-year low with about 60% of the electorate bothering to cast their vote. Among the lowest was Liverpool Riverside turnout was jsut 34.1% of the electorate.

The result was a Labour government with a huge majority achieved (in real terms) by a vote of 24% of the whole population.

Polls suggested that across the country it was 18-25-year-olds who were most apathetic. I haven't checked the figures but I would imagine across the coalition forces it would be the 18-25-year-olds who are most present. So, we fight for democracy but lots of us don't participate – and it's not just us. In the last US presidential elections only half of the eligible Americans went to the booths.

I live in a quiet suburban backwater in Surrey. We have a Liberal Democrat MP and I hope the battle between the Lib Dems and the Tories will be a feisty one. But – and it is a big but – there is also, for the first time in the area, a candidate from the British National Party. The BNP is contesting 219 council seats around the country on 1 May 2003. It has already made its way into three council chambers: in Burnley, in Blackburn and in Calderdale. This is a scary party that exploits and exacerbates racist hysteria against asylum seekers and Muslims. Surely I can relax though? They won't have a chance.