A GLAMOROUS afternoon trailing around a swimming pool complex in West London behind Tessa Jowell, three advisers, four councillors and the swimming pool manager . . . I’m not sure that a columnist can be happier than when witnessing, on the “campaign trail”, the convergence of a pool manager, a Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and some voters who are literally floating. In the event, parents and children splashed happily up and down the lanes, oblivious to the political event taking place on the balcony above.

But isn’t this, I asked one of Ms Jowell’s henchmen as his boss was subsequently shown around some gym equipment, a bit of a waste of her time? He bridled at the suggestion. This is politics, he said. This is what politicians do. They go and talk to people. Hmm. But they were talking only to each other, and to me.

Labour is using Ms Jowell to front its campaign in the capital in the hope that some of the Olympics glory will rub off on the voters. Only about a third of the electorate tends to turn out in local elections, and the theme of this campaign, if there is one, is how to reconnect people with politics.

The swimming pool — a beautiful new complex of public and private facilities, built in partnership between a health club company and the council — was an impressive example of public/private enterprise. But the parents taking their children for a swim in the public pool, pleased though they were with it, had no idea that it had anything to do with the council, and, unsurprisingly, had not connected it with the local elections, if they even knew they were happening. (It was Ms Jowell, incidentally, who got the rules changed last year so that parents are allowed to take more than one young child swimming at the same time; not a lot of people there will have known that, either.)

Ministers blame the media for this growing disconnection from politics: the they-don’t-do-anything-for-me-they’re-just-in-it-for-themselves, stay-at-home voters. We concentrate on personality, we are obsessed with “soap opera”, we don’t write about — well, Public Private Partnership and the new swimming pool in Fulham. Fair enough point.

But observing Tony Blair and Gordon Brown avoid any direct contact with journalists or members of the public at the local election campaign launch, and wondering what the Olympics actually had to do with these elections other than promoting a vague, muscular feel-good factor, I couldn’t help thinking that it might have something to do with the way politicians operate as well.

• Give people a chance and they want to try to make a difference. The “PledgeBank” website (www.pledgebank.com) taps into this communitarian vein by inviting people to sign up to pledges with strangers. An example posted this week: “I will try and keep Figges Marsh tidier during the summer but only if five other local people will help me do this.” If five others sign up, the team gets to work.

  It’s a great idea and one that No 10 has cottoned on to as well. A pledge made by one Tony Blair on Monday says: “I will become the patron of a London community sports club. I will work with the club over the years as the Olympics approaches in 2012 to support their development and raise their profile but only if 100 other public figures in London will join me in supporting other clubs.”

  Ken Livingstone and Tessa Jowell signed up immediately. I’m not kidding; look it up.

  Below the individual pledges are comments by PledgeBank users. “How wonderful that Mr Blair thinks it important to get people interested in sports. However, it would look more genuinely altruistic if he hadn’t spent nine years selling off school playing fields for development,” reads one. “This is just shameless self-publicity,” barks another. “What a lot of cynics!” chides a third. “Honestly — you try to do something good in this country and all you get is abuse from whingey armchair critics. It’ll never work if nobody engages with it! Would you rather the PM didn’t bother?”
  
  Tim Ireland signs up with the promise: “I plan to honour my pledge by building a website for the club and promoting them heavily. I am open to approaches from any club, but they must be willing to understand that we will be playing a new game with new rules; my rules. I would require my adopted team to wear orange jumpsuits as their uniform and play while wearing iron shackles on their legs and bags over their heads. The training programme will be rigorous, it will push local, national and international laws to their limits . . .”
  
  Who says politics is dead?

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