IT will be the biggest test of public opinion in Hampshire outside of a general election.

Voters now just days to decide who they want to put in the corridors of power at Hampshire County Council and the European Parliament It has been four years since all 78 county council seats were last contested. Voters will get to pick who they want spending £1.6 billion of taxpayers' money on services that impact all aspects of daily life in the county, from education, roads and social care to access to the countryside and libraries.

The election was already shaping up to be a referendum on Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has yet to call a general election despite two-thirds of the electorate wanting one this year, according to a recent poll.

But the political crisis caused by the ongoing revelations of MPs' expenses claims - from duck houses and trouser presses to dry rot treatment - is further threatening to overshadow the local messages councillors are trying convey on the doorsteps.

Many angry voters are now eager to put the boot into the established parties.

Professor of politics and governance at the University of Southampton Gerry Stoker thinks it could be bad for democracy.

"It must be very frustrating for hardworking councillors where they have done a decent job in the last few years and national issues are sweeping away their one and only chance to get more focus on local issues," he said.

"It undermines democracy because institutions aren't being held to account for what we've done."

He said the expenses row was "highly likely" to be an extra boost for smaller parties, who already benefit from the additional "oxygen of publicity" they get from the European elections.

Across the 75 electoral divisions in Hampshire, the UK Independence Party is fielding 32 candidates, Greens have 15 and the British National Party has four. However, turnout - traditionally around one-third of the electorate - is difficult to predict.

While public attention has been focused on the state of political parties many voters could stay away as a "plague on all your houses," Mr said Worried Hampshire Conservative councillors have already issued a statement to point out the system controlling their expenses is "transparent" and "entirely different" from Westminster. Yet it would take a huge swing in voting behaviour to shift them from power.

They hold 45 seats, Liberal Democrats have 28, Labour four.

All 40 seats on the Isle of Wight Council are also up for grabs. Councillors in Southampton and Portsmouth, which are unitary authorities, are not up for election.