Graphic: state of play and targets

His hands still dirty from a week’s hard graft, the heating engineer who answered the door was in the mood to punish any politician who dared to come asking for his vote.

He told Alex Williams, a Conservative candidate in the European elections, that normally he voted Tory but was so sickened by revelations of MPs’ greed that this time he was thinking of supporting a fringe party, possibly the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

“I play by the rules,” he said. “I pay my taxes and the taxman will be down on you like a tonne of bricks if you try to get away with anything. It turns out the politicians have made up their own rules. They are on the fiddle.”

If Mr Williams, 34, a chartered accountant, was dismayed, he tried not to show it. Hair dripping wet from the rain, he moved swiftly from door to door on the comfortable, middle-class estate in Dodleston, south of Chester, receiving the same disapproving looks. The word disillusion hung in the air.

At this moment in the life of a Labour Government, the Tories should be buoyant. Their promise of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty should be denting the appeal of UKIP. Labour should simply be happy to retreat to their Manchester and Merseyside heartlands to cling on to their three seats in the European Parliament. But these are not normal times.

In the North West, set to return eight MEPs on June 4, one fewer than last time, there are fears that disenchantment with mainstream politicians will result in an all-time low turn-out in a region whichreturns the lowest polls in Europe. In this atmosphere, UKIP candidates could fill their boots, and Nick Griffin, of the British National Party (BNP), could win a platform in Brussels.

Paul Nuttall, the cheerful Scouse chairman of UKIP, travelled to Blackpool on Friday to officially welcome Frank Carson, the comedian, into the fold. This week the party will unveil 176 billboards demanding British jobs ahead of migrant workers.

On the leafy streets of Dodleston, Mr Williams knocked on the door of a mother of two young girls who told him that, no, she would not be voting this time around.

“It is just with everything going on at the moment — my husband is being made redundant and all you read about is how wealthy MPs are. Well, we are not. Not voting feels like all I can do.”

The candidate’s handlers pointed to figures on their sopping paperwork suggesting that the Conservative vote is up against their main rivals, the Liberal Democrats. But it is clear that something profound has happened. Ordinary people are angry, very angry indeed.

On the other side of the county, in Ellesmere Port, Teresa Griffin, third on Labour’s list, cancelled plans to go knocking on doors because of pouring rain. It was probably just as well. There have been ugly reports of doors violently slammed in the faces of politicians.

Asked to sum up the mood, one party worker screwed up her face and said simply “painful”.

Jane Kennedy, the Environment Minister, was happier among the breeding waders of Hesketh Bank, where a large stretch of reclaimed land is being returned to salt marsh for the lapwings and redshanks.

“This is just about the most difficult political environment I have ever worked in, certainly since the 1980s when Labour was struggling with Militant,” Ms Kennedy said.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, is standing in the North West and, if he is successful, pledging to open a party headquarters between Colne and Preston. Gordon Birtwistle, the leader of Burnley council, where the Liberal Democrats wrested the council from Labour control, warns against hyping the BNP’s appeal.

The BNP was once the official opposition in the former cotton town but eight councillors have dwindled to four. They are, he suggests, the cross we have to bear.

“In truth, there is not a great deal of interest in the European elections, which is unfortunate because they spend most of our money and set most of our laws,” said Mr Birtwistle.

This complaint about the electorate’s lack of real interest in Europe is echoed by Chris Davies, the region’s only Liberal Democrat MEP. He is using a £57 rail rover ticket to traverse the area, stopping at stations to collect signatures for a petition calling for MEPs to declare their expenses.

On a wet and blustery day at Chorley railway station, he complained that he had the highest profile of any North West MEP — 40,000 hits on Google — but still no one knew who he was. He is right. The ticket collector said: “Chris Davies? Never heard of him.”

Mr Davies is scathing about the defection of his MEP colleague Sajjad Karim to the Conservatives and Mr Karim being given the No 2 slot on the party list.

“It looks on current performance that UKIP will trounce the BNP again,” he said. “They will take votes away from the Conservatives, stopping them from winning a fourth seat.

“European elections are made for them in so much as they are seen as referendums as to whether you like Europe or not. That is what they are there for.”

Q&A

Who can vote?
EU citizens resident in the UK and members of the House of Lords are not permitted to vote in the general election but can vote in European parliamentary elections. This means that while 45.1 million people are eligible to vote in the general election, 46.1 million can vote in European elections

How do EU citizens vote?
EU citizens may vote only once and in one member state at a European Parliamentary election. To do otherwise is an offence. Citizens of EU member states wishing to register as voters in European parliamentary elections must complete a separate application accompanied by a declaration. This must state that they will vote only in the UK at any European parliamentary election during the 12-month period of the declaration

How does the voting system work?
There are two different systems in the UK. Northern Ireland uses the single transferable vote, under which voters mark 1, 2 and 3 against candidates in order of preference. Candidates with the least votes are eliminated and their votes redistributed. This is repeated until there are the required number of candidates left. England, Wales and Scotland use the D’Hondt system of proportional representation:
• all votes received in the electoral region are added up and the first seat is given to the party with the highest number of votes;
• the votes for that party are then divided by the number of seats it has already won in that particular electoral region plus one (ie, the party has won one seat, so its original votes would be divided by two);
• the party that has the highest number of votes gets the next seat. This process is continued until all the seats have been allocated

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