AWARE that the EU is seen as distant and imperious, its officials have been trying to persuade Britons to vote in the elections for the European Parliament next week. A series of Euro-posters (some about tricky subjects like energy, others about more banal things such as product packaging) have popped up here and there. The Eurocrats will be pleased with predictions that turnout will be about as high as in the previous European ballot in 2004, as vote-inducing outrage over MPs' expenses cancels out vote-reducing lack of interest in Europe. They may be less pleased with the outcome.

Polling commissioned from YouGov by The Economist suggests that Britain is gradually becoming a more Eurosceptic place. Over the past quarter-century the proportion of people who think Britain's membership of the EU is a good thing has fallen from 43% to 31% (with a spike in 1990 after sterling's ill-fated entry into the Exchange Rate Mechanism). The share of those who think it a bad thing has risen from 30% to 37%. Support for greater integration has dropped, from one in three in 1995 to one in five today (see chart). Those within that group who favour a fully-fledged European government make up only 5% of the total, down from 10% in 1995. Over the same period support for loosening Britain's ties to the EU has risen from 36% to 51%, and those who want Britain to withdraw from it have almost doubled, from 12% to 21%.

Attitudes split roughly along party lines. Conservative voters are the most Eurosceptic (as well as, by a small margin, the most likely to vote). Liberal Democrat supporters are, surprisingly, slightly less keen on Europe than their Labour counterparts, even though the Lib Dems are officially the most Euro-friendly party.

There is also a correlation with age, with older voters leerier of Brussels than their younger compatriots. One explanation is that a cohort of greybeards have fond memories of life with a less powerful EU. Another, says Peter Kellner, head of YouGov, is that, like conservatism, Euroscepticism may come with age.