Change who can vote and you change the policies that will be offered according to who can vote. I like the example of birds and prohibition….
Change who can vote and you change the policies that will be offered according to who can vote. I like the example of birds and prohibition….
Votes for 16 & 17 year olds are just a way for Labour to stuff the ballot boxes.
A 16 year old isn’t old enough to drive, buy alcohol, tobacco, glue or knives. They have to be prevented from accessing age restricted material and gambling. Its illegal for a person in a position of authority to have sex with them, or for them to work in the sex industry. There are many other age restricted jobs that they aren’t allowed to do and must continue in full or part time education till they are 18. If they are suspected of a crime a responsible adult needs to be with them when they are questioned by the police and they will be tried as a youth offender. They also need parental approval to marry and in some instances fly unaccompanied on an international flight.
Yet TTK believes they are old enough to vote.
’Yet TTK believes they are old enough to vote.’
But ‘children’ when it comes to law enforcement
16-17 year olds have been infantilised, for all the reasons AndyF lays out. They are not expected to act as functional adults in any meaningful way. Consequently, many of them don’t.
So I doubt that VAT on car insurance will be one of the new policies created to attract them – the 16 year olds won’t think that far ahead. Fewer restrictions on e-scooters, lowering the porn access age and abolishing the youth minimum wage would be more like it. And there won’t be any deep discussion of the ramifications of those beyond getting the kiddies out to vote.
May as well put a sweetie jar in the voting booth whilst we’re at it.
More proof that lawyers like TTK don’t know much about the law. He didn’t realise all the laws that have to be changed.
I suspect the position of DPP was gained more by copious arse licking than any other attribute.
Which would explain his other proclivities…
Geoffers,
“So I doubt that VAT on car insurance will be one of the new policies created to attract them – the 16 year olds won’t think that far ahead. Fewer restrictions on e-scooters, lowering the porn access age and abolishing the youth minimum wage would be more like it. And there won’t be any deep discussion of the ramifications of those beyond getting the kiddies out to vote.”
e-scooters is probably a good one. They’re already de facto legal. Kids are riding around on them, and the police mostly don’t care.
Most things about age restrictions are rather arbitrary, odd or even corrupt. Should voting be 16, 18, 21? I would have said 18 when I was growing up. That was the age by which most people were going to work, so were participating in adult life. But about half the population are going to university until 21. So, should we raise it? But if it’s about being a sensible, responsible person, should we allow people to drive before they can vote?
I’ve always thought the USA has the most objectionable ones. You can go to war, but you can’t have a beer. Of course, what this led to was a rise in American teenagers consuming more weed.
If we issued all kids with iPhones then they won’t have to go around nicking other people’s
wibble
The left think all kids lean left because of the shouty girls.
They will be rather offended when they find out that boys if that age lean right. This is good news for Reform.
Voting should be tax payers only. Yeh, I know, vat…
All I wanted when I was 16 was pussy, to do things I like, and not have to go and work in some boring straight job. Oh, and after being subject to a fairly standard somewhat bullied childhood, that the world should be “nice” and “fair”. I didn’t want much stuff; we didn’t back then.
So which policies would I have voted for? The “nice” and “fair” stuff, obviously. The government has made pretty good progress on me not having to do a boring job, which is one of the contemporary problems. As for pussy, I’m not sure how the government might provide it, and anyway it seems even less likely now than then, as the girls now all seem to want pussy, too.
Chester,
There was a BBC piece about this which was “let’s ask the kids what they think” but anyone who remembers a camera crew coming to school knows that the teachers picked the sort of kids that would be ambassadors for the school. Modern versions of the kids that worked hard to be leaders in the Young Pioneers and could quote Erich Honneker, rather than seeing it as a way to have a fun camping trip.
I think kids will probably want more spending because they’re on the recipient side. But the rest of the package that comes with Labour or the Lib Dems? Maybe, maybe not. I would say that boys are much less into eco than girls are.
If the most uncool man in Britain thinks teenagers will vote for him then he’s even more deluded than I thought.
Tim Almond
“Should voting be 16, 18, 21? I would have said 18 when I was growing up. That was the age by which most people were going to work, so were participating in adult life. But about half the population are going to university until 21.”
Well now. The age of majority used to be 21 – until 1970 when reduced to 18, Labour again – at a time when most people left school age 14/15 to start work – hard work too – and participate in adult life, so the argument to reduce voting age to 16 then was more valid than for the cotton-wrapped, milquetoasts today with their thumbs glued to smart phones, who don’t work.
If anything
Up until then people under age 21 could not enter into legal contracts, could not marry without parental consent, could not vote or drink alcohol on licensed premises – unless a club when the age limit was 19.
Angie Nobrainer only just hung on to her seat in 2024 against an Islamist. Given the number of 16 year olds who will vote as daddy tells them, in 2029 she will assuredly lose.
Turkey. Christmas.
35 is the best approximation to a sensible voting age: by then you won’t have only have drawn out of the public purse you’ll have paid into it too.
Naturally those who have lived on benefits to age 35 wouldn’t get the vote. Indeed, there’s a case that anyone who reaches 25 having lived only on benefits should be sterilised. One generation of layabouts is enough (to adapt the wisdom of a SCOTUS Justice of long ago).
Mind you the Justice in question was just making it up – the Constitution says no such thing. Whether the old bastard was a Bolshevik or a Nazi I don’t know. Doesn’t much matter, does it?
Norman,
“As for pussy, I’m not sure how the government might provide it, and anyway it seems even less likely now than then, as the girls now all seem to want pussy, too.”
Shrink the state. Not just in terms of benefits, but phony baloney public sector jobs.
It’s made women want to cosplay having careers, with government as Daddy. And I have nothing against serious women wanting to have careers but most women have the sort of vision of living like Carrie Bradshaw, knocking out a newspaper column a week and affording luxury shoes and a massive New York apartment.
Girls can do one of two things in their teenage years: work hard at school with the aim of running WH Smith and putting in 12 hour days, or get good with makeup and blowjobs to get a husband. Both are valid strategies. What isn’t is wasting years on a degree to then be a punch clock worker.
And of course, once you get this idea into women’s heads, they vote to keep it. Even though it’s actually economically terrible – your salary is just going to go straight out the door onto childcare and running a second car.
Young men in the UK should probably leave. Look down the table of “age of first birth” and keeping down until you find somewhere that isn’t too dangerous. Bulgaria or Brazil with age of first birth of 27.7, I guess? You’re going to get women who haven’t been brainwashed too much into “get a (cosplay) career”, where the government isn’t producing a massive, wasteful public sector stuffed full of barely productive women. UK is 30.6. Those countries have a lot more women who are wanting husbands younger.
Voting should be at the age of adulthood whatever the age of adulthood is. It shouldn’t be tied to an age, it should be tied to adult majority. If you want 16-year-olds to vote, you do it by making 16-year-olds full and complete adults, losing all and every right and protection of being a child.
Being held to contracts, being tried in adult court, being sent to adult prisons, being shot at as an adult soldier, no cheap fares, no junivile protection, etc.
How about timocracy? Everybody pays VAT, so one vote. If you pay basic rate income tax, two votes. If you pay higher rate, three votes. Should sort out the scroungers from the workers.
Seen elsewhere:
So it’s true then, Keir Starmer is a Kiddiemander!
Up until then people under age 21 could not enter into legal contracts, could not marry without parental consent, could not vote or drink alcohol on licensed premises
They do say if you remember the 60s you probably weren’t there, but…
The minimum age for drinking alcohol in England was never 21. I’m not even sure there was a minimum age. Is there now? The minimum age was for buying alcohol.
And was 18
In which both Labour and the unimpressive Mr Tice completely fail to read the room:
They said: “This means a potential future Reform UK government would not have the ability to ‘strike down’ any contracts signed through this process, unless you are willing to destroy investor confidence in the whole of UK industry by ripping up contract law. Can you confirm if it is Reform UK policy to rip up contract law?”
Speaking to the BBC on Thursday afternoon, Tice appeared to row back on the specific commitment to scrap AR7 contracts, saying a Reform government would only oppose “any form of variation” to them, something his letter did not appear to set out. Asked about the apparent change, Tice said “some people may have misread the wording of the letter”
What if our climate policy was to nail them to barn doors?
In which coppers decide it’s ok to maim you if you’re white and British:
A police van allegedly drove into a protester at an anti-migrant demonstration.
It came as demonstrators clashed with officers and set off fireworks on Thursday outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, which is believed to be housing asylum seekers.
The demonstration was sparked by an asylum seeker’s appearance in court, charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
A video of the protest showed two police vans driving through a crowd of protesters, many of whom had England flags and Union Flags.
The footage showed the first van, with blaring sirens, smash through a barricade as protesters shouted “oh no”.
A second van following behind can then be seen to ram into a male protester, pushing him several feet backwards, before he was able to get out of the way.
The protester appeared to walk away unharmed as someone in the crowd shouted: “Oh my god… What the f—.”
The demonstration outside the hotel comes after the arrest in Epping of Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, an Ethiopian asylum seeker, who appeared at Chelmsford magistrates’ court on Thursday, where he denied trying to kiss a 14-year-old girl.
He is reported to have arrived in Britain eight days before the alleged assault.
It was a long time ago but as a teenager in suburban East London I was somewhere to the right of Ghengis Khan (and I joined the shop workers union at 16 too, saw the benefit not the politics) and I don’t think that youngsters have changed that much since.
Self respect is linked to resources, the more you have the less what other people think of you matters. As a kid you have sweet FA, so they are the supreme individualists. A dirty look stings at that age. Should 16 YO’s get the vote I would expect swing to the extremes and they’ll be the ones arsed to go and vote.
‘I was somewhere to the right of Ghengis Khan’
Thanks Brindisini. It’s pleasant to know that someone else shares my politics.
@ Brindisini
I seem to recall being rather more right wing as a teenager too and have never been a union member. Not even the student union where I did my degree. Apparently the Student Union organisation deemed the place too right wing to have any presence there.
Should 16 YO’s get the vote I would expect swing to the extremes and they’ll be the ones arsed to go and vote.
I can’t remember where I read it but the brain doesn’t stop developing until 25 and the last part that develops is the bit that controls wild swings to the extremes.
My only worry is it gives politicians an excuse to talk to youngsters.
Look at what rumble videos are accusing Trump of.
https://rumble.com/v6wa3c6-epstein-donald-trump-and-sexual-blackmail-networks-w-nick-bryant-the-chris-.html
Chris Hedges has some controversial views about Trump and Epstein links.
Musk said rude stiff about Trump and Epstein.
Hedges and Musk need to show the evidence for their comments.
Steve,
No government is bound by a previous one. But what you do is wheel someone in and negotiate early termination with a little bonus for it. “We pay for the work done and we give you another 20% for basically nothing, and you fuck off. Alternatively we bring in a 100% windfall tax on your profits”
WB – have you ever heard of the Darien Scheme? Put together by the same Scottish shyster who helped start the Bank of England.
Or the South Sea Bubble?
There were political implications of these crashes, because so much of the social elite’s capital (and future revenue expectations) went *poof*
So I don’t disagree with you. It would also be very unwise to announce any detailed plans years in advance of a speculative election victory.
A lot of powerful and well connected people are going to be horribly disappointed when the Net Zero bubble bursts. They’re going to scream like piggies that they should still be paid, somehow. Net Zero is the most spectacular government-directed misallocation of resources since Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward. They’ll teach about it in history books, as a similar example to the Darien and South Seas manias.
The problem isn’t the 16-18yos who can be arsed to go out and vote; it’s the ones whose head-of-household will fill out their vote for them.
There are, I would guess about 100,000 16-18yo Muslims in the UK, so that’s another 200,000 votes for the “independent” Jew-hater/Christian-hater/Hindu-haters candidates.
@bloke in spain – “The minimum age for drinking alcohol in England was never 21. I’m not even sure there was a minimum age.”
Yes. The Children and Young Persons Act 1933 imposes a minimum age of five years. Though, strictly speaking, that imposes a minimum age at which it is legal to give you alcohol. The child is not committing an offence by drinking while under age.
How do you get babies to sleep if you can’t dip their dummies in brandy?
Asking for a friend, obviously.