The political parties are spying on us like never before - borrowing high street marketing programmes to work out who you are.

But they are not equally interested in everyone. They are focusing their efforts and messages on swing voters in swing seats.

That means many of the 43m registered voters in the country won't be bothered too much with direct mail and phone calls in the next five weeks.

Not even all the 8m or so of voters who live in marginal seats are going to get the full treatment from the parties because their biggest efforts are being piled into fewer than 1m voters they think are the floaters, waverers in the swing seats.

They are locating their victims with the exact computer programme High Street shops and salesmen have used for years.

Experian's Mosaic marketing programme has broken up the whole population into 60 labeled groups of people, bonded by common interests, habits, age. Its creator believes we are more and more defined by where we live - we are our postcodes.
Mosaic creator Richard Webber said: “We see the country dividing into certain sorts of neighbourhoods where people enjoy diversity.

“They like having variety, and there are other parts of the country where people are much more concerned to get away from people they don’t feel comfortable with and live among people who are similar and reinforce their values.”

Companies like car manufacturers Subaru have been using the programme for years to identify their core customers, and work out where they can move in on a rival's terrain

The Conservative Party bought the programme - and produced a DVD explaining it to activists. It is not known if the activists found this helpful.

At Labour's call centre in Gateshead they're using the same data to make half a million targeted calls by May 5.

The Mosaic programme can zoom in on a marginal constituency like Welyn Hatfield - where Labour cling on by barely a thousand votes and is 18th on the Tory target list.

Using post-code and other data - Mosaic have produced a map showing where core voters live and where the much sought after floating voters might be.

And when you are in one of these zones you find voters are being deluged with phone calls and direct mail from the main parties - before the campaign proper has even begun.

The Liberal Democrats say they have less need of databases - with more helpers on the ground - but they are dabbling in the marketing arts. They are sifting out ethnic minority surnames to target voters they hope will share their opposition to war in Iraq.

Campaigns director for the Lib Dems, Lord Rennard said: “Within each constituency, we will look obviously at what information we can glean from the electoral register.

“It will tell us where the minority voters are, where students are and who are particularly susceptible to the Liberal Democrat message in this election.”

For some, these marketing techniques mirror the targeting that is dominating our politics - whether it is targeted budget giveaways or carefully tailored policies and slogans.

However they risk leaving the untargeted feeling marginalised, a little unloved and unlikely to turn out.