Today a third of the English, and all the Welsh and Scots, vote locally – if they can be bothered, if they’re not suffering election fatigue along with Brenda from Bristol.

Turnout may be low, as the parties invested virtually nothing in these locals, directing all effort to 8 June. Yet when you consider how savagely local government has been cut in recent years there is a strange passivity in politics.

The Local Government Association, which is supposed to stand up for councils, makes only muted objections because it’s Tory-run. The tribal silence of these mainly Tory shires has been remarkable, considering the deep cuts to everything from social care to schools and pothole repairs. Children’s centres have been closing, and children’s services are in a perilous state, with too few social workers and tottering caseloads. Day centres for the frail have shut; meals on wheels ended. Half a million home-alone old people who would have qualified in 2010 now get no care.

Surrey made its own crafty protest by pretending to raise council tax by 15% and hold a referendum in the county of the chancellor and Tory grandees. But it was no more than a little friendly blackmail, quickly fixed behind Tory closed doors. Leaders of these Tory councils have betrayed their voters: as the Whitehall axe was devolved to them, they had the power to shake their party’s leaders, but they did as they were told, despite being forced to inflict very real harm on their people. Meanwhile, wretched Labour councils, with no Whitehall clout, often face local protests over cuts and closures. That anger should be directed at the government.

How well will voting in these 4,851 seats, plus the six new mayoralities, predict the general election result? They may not be a particularly good guide. The British Election Study finds a quarter of people now regularly vote differently in locals than in nationals. Professor Philip Cowley of Queen Mary’s London University has a hunch that even more will split their votes this time: voting for local bin-emptiers will feel very different to confronting the great national issues of Brexit, May and Corbyn at Westminster. “But there is always something we are not seeing ahead of elections that afterwards looks obvious,” he warns – wisely, after the Brexit vote and Cameron’s 2015 win. “Were we listening hard enough?”

In seven out of eight of the last elections, polls were wrongly biased in Labour’s favour, says Manchester University’s Professor Rob Ford. As pollsters try to recalibrate and correct that error, will they swing too hard against Labour this time?

The Tories will just be weighing their votes: a massive 15 points up on 2013, when these seats were last up. The only knife edge will be over the new West Midlands mayoralty. One question in this interminable campaign with its inevitable result: have the Tory spinners gone too early on May’s lifeless, robotic messaging, with five dreadful weeks still to go?

Cowley reminds us just how shocking it will be for Labour to lose any seats, when oppositions should gain hand over fist from a government in power so long. He points to forecasts that run from Labour losing a seriously bad 75 to a truly appalling 315 seats. Some TV journalists report trawling Labour heartlands struggling to find people willing to give balancing pro-Labour vox pops. However bad the results, Labour can point to new mayors in Manchester and Liverpool. But Wales and Scotland look dire. Can Labour really lose Bridgend?

Will Liberal Democrats rally their old strength as the natural opposition to the shire Tories? They need a surge. But they may do better when Brexit is the general election issue in remainer university towns.

Ukip did exceptionally well in 2013, but Professor Ford looks at what became of them: a quarter of their 130 winners have defected, resigned, been expelled or died. Their two biggest council groups rowed and split within six months. Now they have lost their USP as Theresa May trumps them in Brexit zeal.

How mighty is the Tory hegemony? That’s the only question, but every election day is a reminder of our atrocious electoral system. Everything about it is rotten and derelict, a two-party fix in a country wanting multiple choices. Both parties are locked in a loveless marriage between their right and left. New parties are strangled at birth. Anti-Tory tactical voting in a progressive alliance is a valiant attempt to escape the monstrous first-past-the-post grip, but even the optimists only aim to sway a handful of seats.

This corkscrew system means that 30% of those planning to vote Lib Dem in the general election say it’s not their preferred party but a reluctant, tactical choice. That’s unjust, but rational: most voting is with a nose-peg, to keep out the worst.

The decline in voting should be treated as a democratic crisis. The referendum was an exception, as a yes/no choice doesn’t require voters to give approval to any politician. Shockingly, only 14% of 18- to 24-year-olds say they will definitely vote. That ensures the government bribes the over-65s, 79% of whom say they will vote, while the young get nothing.

To save the young from themselves, it’s time to march them down to the polling station, making voting compulsory, at least the first time. They can always spoil their ballot paper. But there is good evidence that if people vote once, they get the habit. I would make voting the compulsory duty of every citizen – Brenda from Bristol included. It’s very little to ask, to bolster a hard-won democracy.

Voters are sour about politics partly because of the blatant bribery by billionaires and trade union barons to influence policies their way. State funding, with only small donations from the public, would cleanse that stink of corruption. How does the House of Lords survive? The Electoral Reform Society has long called for a constitutional convention to thrash out all these deadly dysfunctions. What chance? Absolutely zero, after this Tory landslide. She could do anything – but don’t look to Theresa May for blue-sky radicalism.