Lowering voting age

I Sperg said:

A contraction, it is widely believed, of the two words, "Bloody" and "Liar"...

I like that!

Upvoted for creatively misspelling the name of that venial and over-promoted man.

The correct spelling is of course, "Bliar".. A contraction, it is widely believed, of the two words, "Bloody" and "Liar"...

I’m inclined to believe that the age for everything should be 21, not just for voting, assuming that we had a properly working democratic system (which we don’t, as Covid clearly taught us) - I really do believe that the only way out of our current mess is an immediate return to traditional moral and social values in every area of our society and a total rollback of everything since the 1960’s should be actively considered as lessons have not been learned since both world wars 

I tend to agree with both comments given the kind of corruption that I’ve seen in both U.K. and Irish politics in recent years - during Covid, it was revealed that Mary Lou Mc Donald of Sinn Fein was involved with a big pharma company via her husband which angered many in the anti-vaxx lobby, as it was regarded as a conflict of interest 

no... the investments are most manipulated so you have to bar them from investment too as in government if they have investments they know more and it could be classed as insider trading for them to be investing in things while in a position to see whats happening such as something big that may effect a certain company they have stocks in. so investments are likely more corrupt for them to have as its insider trading.

Not quite on-topic but whilst we’re talking about governance, two things that I heard recently which I think would be good changes: stop all political donations to all parties other than a fixed subscription paid by each party member; stop any elected official from having any other job or income or any interest other than simple investments in any business or enterprise. Give me something to vote for that is less corrupt and self-serving. 

I remember when I was really young Tony Blear was prime minister I didn’t like him I don’t know why my parents didn’t like him and it rubbed off on me but I always wanted to vote as young as 6. I’m not sure what to say about this but I believe kids will follow their parents and it might not be for the better. At least when a person is 18 they have their own minds and are able to make their own decisions rather that follow their parents views like I used to. I also feel it should be taught more in schools before a person reaches the legal age to vote. 

TheCatWoman said:

I agree that teenagers arn't always fully informed about politics or life in general, but then neither are many adults.

This is the crux of the matter.

People either don't want the bother of educating themselves about the choices (too much work) or don't care.

Young people that are the target of this lowering of voting age thing are much more likely to be motivated - idealistic and with free time and are more likely to vote for the more sympathetic lines taken by Labour.

Conservatives tend to come from the older voters, the better off and more upwardly mobile voters, few of who are likely to be boosted by the young vote.

A much more meaningful move would be for the politicians to vote for proportional representation, but with the way we have maintained a 2 party system for so long it is in neither of their interests. It would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.

And it produces kids!

we dont even have representational democracy.... we only vote a party, then the party dictates and chooses everything.... this system has been penned as elective dictatorship. 

Voting should be set at the same age as the age of consent.

Voting is after all, givng consent to a system that ****s most of us at some time, or for some of you, consistently and relentlessly...

The Guardian-Readers have the Goverment by the Balls.

Only LibLab Hegemony shall satisfy them.

Interesting idea Desmond. 

In ancient Athens, citizens were encouraged to join in debates and vote on each decision, however because the population was so small (and "citizens" didn't include everyone) it was easier. It's known as direct democracy, but we now have representational democracy - because our nation is so huge, we can't all vote on every issue. Even though we have the internet, if there was an online referendum about every decision, it would probably crash the system!

So do you have any ideas as to how we should govern ourselves?

yeah its currently labour manipulating kids in school.... that why labour voters support this... my point is to labour voters, if labour voters support this they need to think, the tories will act on it and take over their education... they wont allow labour to retain control of education when it has voting potential like this. once this is done, labour thinks its a win for them... but the tories will just take over labours institutions so it will be a loss for them.

as for the kids whod support this thinking its good for them.... to them id say, your not a kid forever, your only a kid now, when you grow up this is against you and the people pushing this will discard you in favour of uninformed impressionable next gen kids.... so the kids of today you are making your enemy of tommorow by wanting this.

yes we can change... but taking a young person and asking them to vote right away right now at this time in their uniformed life? ... they will vote wrong, they will vote based on what a teacher told them not based on their own experience... its a fake vote, its a rigged voter.

the young kid reading this... maybe not liking that.... but they have to then realise, they want kids to vote as the kids are uninformed, they dont like adults voting as adults have lived and formed their own opinion on experience.... they want kids to drown out responsible real adult vote by experience..... but the kid who wants to push this should think on it this way.... they are but a kid now, in the future they will be 30, they will be adult with their own real opinion based on real life.... and then these people who pushed for the young uninformed to vote will no longer like them, because they are old now and have experience and their own opinion... they will be discarded by the people doing this, they are only valued when they are too young and impressionable and have no experience... the people that want this respect their vote now as they can manipulate it... but they wont respect their vote when they grow older. they are not kids forever, and they will be discarded by the people doing this when they are older.

As far as I'm concerned, there shouldn't be Elections; or Politics.

We should learn to Govern ourselves.

No one is taught responsibility. Just taught meaningless information. Kids are taught 'Citizenship' and 'Laws'; in order to be cute, when claiming of someone else.

This is what the Americans were meant to base their society on; but then lost that vision whenever the Germans came to the Mid West; 160 Years ago.

Hi Caelus

I've "liked" your post because you made a good point about what young people are being taught. A colleague of mine told me that when her son was at university a few years back, it was an extremely left wing institution and none of the students would say they were voting anything other than Labour.

Of course, any person can be influenced by another person or group, and we can't have tests to ensure people understand politics before voting, so I think giving all adults the vote is the best we can currently do.

I wish we had proportional representation though...

To be honest, the whole thing was about sucking children into a Vortex; to produce Resentful and Vengeful Adults.

Kids need to learn responsibilities, and the importance of standing on one's own two feet. Rather than 'Live for 

Today, do not worry about tomorrow!'

How would you prove sufficient understanding? I agree that teenagers arn't always fully informed about politics or life in general, but then neither are many adults.

I look back at so many things I've said and done in my life and think I was so young then, but was my 30 or 40 year old self really so uninformed? We all change as we go through life, politics changes too and I think we vote or not according to the changing priorites of both our lives and our times. Things like AI were a distant sci fi dream when I was 30, now many see them as an existential threat, same as social media, I don' tthink we can vote bcause thats how we've always voted, although I'm sure many do

16 year olds are leaving school without ability to read or write.

16 year olds know nothing about life but what their teacher told them and will likely be parroting stuff the teacher rammed into them... and the tories can easily take over education to weight the youth on their side as much as labour have actually done themselves to the education system...

so a person without knowledge of the world only knowing of it what they are told by... propagandists... should not be allowed a vote, for they know nothing but what they have been told... its too easy to rig elections.... and all the labour voters reading this, sorry, but you maybe doing it better now but if they allow this the tories will move into doing this and they will do it better for they own the schools and own their funding...

before people dont like this comment, i consider myself to not have been good enough to vote in my 20s... i only started functioning in life in my 30s.