Adolescent Voters

Adolescent Voters

Not content with being liable to pay taxes and bear arms for their country, the sixteen year olds of the United Kingdom are now demanding the right to vote.

Just when Tony Blair thought that his life could not get any worse, his traditional approach to the British electorate - half truths and a boyish smile - have been rendered obsolete by a budding electorate who think of him more as Grandpa than Premier.

The immediate reaction of the older generation has been to dismiss this surge in political interest as being a passing adolescent phase that will go the way of punk rock and boy bands. But this reaction merely reflects the traditional views of a ruling hierarchy which has more in common with the playing fields of Eton than the working majority who elected them.

Should the three major parties - Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour - take any notice of this young pressure group backed by the National Union of Students and the Children's Right Alliance for England? Would alienation of this younger age group have a significant effect on the outcome of a General Election when everyone shade of political opinion fights it out to decide who will form the new government in Westminster?

If we take a short term view and assume that the election of a government is based purely on numbers then the answer is no. The teenagers demanding to be heard amount to barely more than 1.5 million which bares no comparison to the ageing baby boomer population which is approaching 10 million. So politically it is far more important for party leaders to make extravagant claims about pension increases than promises of reductions on CD sales tax.

This assumes that the major parties are even aware of the younger voters who are excluded from every election- local or national - by rhetoric that is aimed primarily at adult house owners. The needs and aspirations of the country's adolescents have been ignored to the point where a survey conducted in 2001 found that one in three teenagers had no interest whatsoever in politics compared to one in ten adults.

To add insult to this injury, the trend in the UK over the past ten years has been to make life more difficult for younger age groups by making students take out loans to finance their time at University. This has resulted on graduates starting their careers with debt burdens of £20,000 or more at a time when they should be conserving their resources to set up home and launch careers.

Have the major political parties made any attempt to correct this situation in the recent British elections? Well, if we examine the policies of the three major parties we find the usual round of health service promises, better deals for pensioners and the usual incantations around the importance of education. Nowhere do we find any manifesto specifically designed to attract younger age groups into the democratic process.

So where does this leave the teenagers who cleverly timed their protest to coincide with the British parliamentary bun fight? Well, it made entertaining headlines for a couple of days and opportunities for highly articulate school students to have their five minutes of fame on national radio. But ultimately it will achieve very little. And probably just as well because one youngster of voting age recently told me that she intended to vote Conservative because the campaign leaflet that came through her door had the friendliest message and the prettiest colour scheme!



	Not content with being liable to pay taxes and bear arms for their country, the sixteen year olds of the United Kingdom are now demanding the right to vote. Just when Tony Blair thought that his life could not get any worse, his traditional approach to the British electorate - half truths and a boyish smile - have been rendered obsolete by a budding electorate who think of him more as Grandpa than Premier. The immediate reaction of the older generation has been to dismiss this surge in political interest as being a passing adolescent phase that will go the way of punk rock and boy bands. But this reaction merely reflects the traditional views of a ruling hierarchy which has more in common with the playing fields of Eton than the working majority who elected them. Should the three major parties - Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour - take any notice of this young pressure group backed by the National Union of Students and the Children's Right Alliance for England? Would alienation of this younger age group have a significant effect on the outcome of a General Election when everyone shade of political opinion fights it out to decide who will form the new government in Westminster? If we take a short term view and assume that the election of a government is based purely on numbers then the answer is no. The teenagers demanding to be heard amount to barely more than 1.5 million which bares no comparison to the ageing baby boomer population which is approaching 10 million. So politically it is far more important for party leaders to make extravagant claims about pension increases than promises of reductions on CD sales tax. This assumes that the major parties are even aware of the younger voters who are excluded from every election- local or national - by rhetoric that is aimed primarily at adult house owners. The needs and aspirations of the country's adolescents have been ignored to the point where a survey conducted in 2001 found that one in three teenagers had no interest whatsoever in politics compared to one in ten adults. To add insult to this injury, the trend in the UK over the past ten years has been to make life more difficult for younger age groups by making students take out loans to finance their time at University. This has resulted on graduates starting their careers with debt burdens of £20,000 or more at a time when they should be conserving their resources to set up home and launch careers. Have the major political parties made any attempt to correct this situation in the recent British elections? Well, if we examine the policies of the three major parties we find the usual round of health service promises, better deals for pensioners and the usual incantations around the importance of education. Nowhere do we find any manifesto specifically designed to attract younger age groups into the democratic process. So where does this leave the teenagers who cleverly timed their protest to coincide with the British parliamentary bun fight? Well, it made entertaining headlines for a couple of days and opportunities for highly articulate school students to have their five minutes of fame on national radio. But ultimately it will achieve very little. And probably just as well because one youngster of voting age recently told me that she intended to vote Conservative because the campaign leaflet that came through her door had the friendliest message and the prettiest colour scheme!