Voter apathy is set to reach record levels in the forthcoming General Election, mainly because people are fed up with political spin, a new report claims today.

Research among 3,000 people showed that one in four may not vote, increasing to one in three among those aged between 25 and 34.

Two out of three said the main reason was that they did not trust politicians and a similar number believed election manifestos were based on "fiction", not fact.

Tony Blair came out of the survey particularly badly, with just 14 per cent of those polled believing he was honest.

The Iraq war was one of the reasons given, with 54 per cent of those questioned saying that the so-called "dodgy dossier" was the most serious act of political dishonesty ever, way ahead of the Watergate scandal or Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. Politicians were named as the biggest liars, ahead of estate agents.