Every time there’s an election, people express great concern that the young don’t seem to vote. They say this leaves the parties gloomily looking for things with which to attract the old, who do vote.
This situation provokes much sardonic mirth among those of us who served in the 60s on the Latey Committee on the Age of Majority, which brought the voting age down to 18, thus enfranchising the young, who were assumed to be panting to join grown-up politics.
The question of how old is old enough was vague even then: we learned the age was 21 only because that was the age at which a young man was deemed strong enough to wear full armour.
It amuses me in retrospect that one reason we thought the young should have the vote was that they were often so much better educated than their seniors. We’d hardly think that today, unless all voting and politics had to be done on computers.
It didn’t occur to us that the young would need persuading to stagger to the polls. But maybe next time the parties should, instead of promising that all Granny’s wishes will come true, work at enticing the reluctant young to take an interest in who governs them. After all, we didn’t do all that stuff for nothing.
What do you think? Have your say below
