 The protesters marched past Sheffield Town Hall |
Like most urban areas the numbers turning out for elections in Sheffield have been falling over the past decade ... particularly among the young.
That statistic would have been hard to believe when the city centre came to a halt on a couple of warm summer evenings in June 2005.
Passionate protestors took over the streets waving banners, dancing to drumming bands and shouting slogans.
The majority of the protestors were in that under-30 age group that is turning away from the ballot box in such numbers that it is worrying to the mainstream political parties.
In fact, those "G8 protesters", drawn to Sheffield because of a gathering of Ministers from the world's most economically powerful nations, were far from united in a single cause.
They were a whole range of different groups hoping to catch the attention of the world's press for the single issue that concerned them.
On one corner a group gathered with a banner calling for the troops to be withdrawn from Iraq.
A few yards away the burning issue was the introduction of identity cards.
Yet another group were from the "make poverty history" campaign.
So are public protests by a "Single issue" organisation a danger to a democratic process traditionally dominated by political parties?
The Politics Show recruited Sheffield journalism students James Melly and Caroline Turner to investigate why the traditional political parties are not tapping into the passion being put into "single issue" campaigns on our University campuses.
In their report Matt Flinders, a senior academic with Sheffield University's Politics Department, says the problem is with the Parties themselves.
"The young still see parties as white, middle class institutions led by middle aged men," he tells the Politics Show for Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
"They must appeal to the young. It is all very well national initiatives being set up, but it is at local party branch level where most young people should be encouraged to feel that their views matter on policy decisions.
"It is not happening."
The cameras from the University's School of Journalism also focus on student Mark Ansell.
He has just been elected as an officer of the students union and is a member of Amnesty International and campaigns to provide milk for poverty-stricken families abroad.
Mark has turned away from party politics. "I want to feel as though I make a difference," he says.
"I have been a member of a political party but it did not seem to be making any headway on the issues I am interested in.
"I want things to change for the better now."
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