IF the views of half the residents of the new Blackburn with Darwen ward of Fernhurst to whom our reporter spoke are any indication, the affinity of people living there is, as Rossendale and Darwen's MP Labour Janet Anderson claims, with Blackburn and not Darwen.

Yet is it their concerns about the Boundary Commission's recommendation that Fernhurst, which includes parts of Ewood, Earcroft and Lower Darwen, should be added to Darwen in her constituency that Mrs Anderson is tenderly touched by?

Give over -- it's all those middle-class voters in the ward's new executive housing estates at places like Oakdale and Fernhurst Farm that she's worried by rather than for. Besides, the other half of the residents we asked weren't concerned -- they either fancied being represented by her or didn't care which constituency they were in.

But Rossendale with Darwen is a marginal and the last thing Mrs Anderson wants is hundreds of potential Tory voters, narked over rising petrol prices and council tax, having a say over who should be the seat's MP -- no matter that the prospect may be two general elections away and no matter that New Labour deliberately dressed up in Tory clothes to appeal to the middle class.

It is for the same reason that fellow Labourite Jack Straw does not want Fernhurst folk voting in his adjoining Blackburn seat, safer though it is, and rejects Mrs Anderson's suggestion that it's where they belong.

But when people see themselves being prodded by bargepoles by public representatives in such transparent efforts to put saving their own political skin before the voters' concerns, is it any wonder that more and more are giving up voting for anyone at all?