IT'S EASY to joke about apathy. The patter goes something like this. I was going to write a column about apathy but then I couldn't... Oh, I think there might be something missing from that last sentence. It might be the words "be bothered" but frankly I am not inclined to go back.

Apathy is said to be rampant at the moment. It might not actually be rampant, as rampancy is a bit too energetic. But the uninterested and the unmoved are massing everywhere. Or possibly just sitting at home and thinking all that massing sounds like an awful lot of bother just for a General Election.

The Labour Party is apparently very worried about the Opposition. This is not the Conservative Party. Labour is only a little bit worried about them. No, the true opposition is the Apathy Party, or 'ap' if you can't be bothered with two whole words when one syllable will do.

At the last election in 1997, 13.5 million people voted Labour, giving Tony Blair his enormous majority. A further 12.6 million stayed at home with their feet up and didn't vote at all. The fear is that this time round, those who can't be bothered will out number those who summon up the energy to vote Labour.

So to spell this out, if Labour won in such a fashion, more people would have not voted than those who endorsed the new Government. And this is scary. I'm not making a point in any party's favour here, just taking a swipe at those too lazy or uncommitted or too absorbed in Coronation Street to vote.

Apathy seems to be fashionable. Perhaps it is the new black mood. Or maybe listlessness is where it's at. But such languor is terrible. Politics may seem dull or grubby or ridiculous, and there may be commentators and sketch writers who spend their lives poking fun at politicians - the lucky devils - but for all that, politics is serious. Far too serious to be left to the politicians.

General Elections are when we all get involved. And we should do just that. If anyone feels too dispirited to vote, too alienated or whatever, they should drag themselves along to the polling booth and spoil their ballot paper. At least that way their displeasure would be registered.

This, by the way, is advice offered to the terminally slack. I certainly will be voting, even though I'm not sure how. Last time round, Labour got my vote with something approaching enthusiasm. Four years on, my fervour has gone a little flat. The occasional bubble does still rise, though usually only in negative response to something ridiculous William Hague has said - and not because New Labour has done anything that pleases me.

Of course, you can always count on Mrs Thatcher. Just when I thought she was one of those old, echoing night-mares up she pops on the TV news, like Miss Haversham dragged out into the daylight.

In the Daily Mail, a newspaper so slavishly pro-Tory that it should be re-christened the Daily Billy, Lady Thatcher proclaims that: "Blair is destroying my legacy by stealth."

Heavens, Tony must be doing something right then. The former premier also said Tony Blair had socialism in his bloodstream. That might be news to many people - including Tony Blair. I expect he'll sue. Socialism indeed, what an insult to the man.

It is perfectly possible to argue that Blair has in fact been carrying on Thatcher's legacy by stealth, especially with all the promises to reform pubic services by even greater involvement of the private sector. But at least Tony Blair believes in public services, even if he talks the Labour talk while doing Tory-style private finance deals.

But this isn't getting me any closer to allocating my vote. Maybe New Labour deserves another four or five years. After all, the Tories had 18 years to ruin the country. So I'll vote, and I might well vote Labour, if a little apathetically.