General Chat

The government have confirmed ( according to a news report) that the voting age WILL be brought down to 16 for the next election. :-( :-( :-(

It's been 16 here in Scotland, apart from UK govt elections, for several years now. The argument is that if you can get married, fight for your country and do pretty much everything else, you should be allowed to vote.

Don’t know about Scotland but usually you have to have parents permission to get married and join the services that young.

Voter ID will now include a UK bank card - but anyone can get one if those :-S

Interestingly it appears the minimum age for marriage has recently been raised to 18.

So that is another thing to add to the growing list of things you can’t do before 18, including fighting on the front line even though you may have joined up under the age of 18.

I did like the statement that if you pay taxes you are entitled to have your say. Well that cuts out most under 18’s and a lot of other people too ;-)

I dread to think what will happen to the ccountry if 16 year olds get the vote. Most don't know the first thing about poltics and at that age it is difficult to think about anyone other than themselves.

When people don't know about politics and then vote it can be a nightmare. At our polling station (which is normally very quiet) when we had the Brexit vote there were people coming in all the time who didn't even know how to vote, didn't realise you had to use the booths or than you put your ballot paper in the box near the door :-S

Look at the mess that caused!

According to the staff running the polling station most have never been back!

Kath. x

It was interesting to see on TV last night, that when interviewed a group of well spoken 16 year olds of both sexes, said that they didn't want the vote. they felt they were too young, had no life experience and would not have a clue who to vote for. and if labour think it will help them in the next election a poll showed that they were wrong as many of that age group do not vote for the 2 main parties. In fact they were spread across all parties

At lunchtime the news spoke to some po faced school kids( in uniform) who all thought it the right thing. By the evening it was youngsters in the street all saying they wouldn’t bother.

My feeling is 16 is too young.....no life experience :-0

There are no doubt some well-informed young people, but for most it would probably be difficult to use their vote.
It's bad enough for me to choose between candidates in elections, when often one has never even heard of them until the campaign starts.

Just thinking. I would not hand over my weekly household allowance to most 16 year olds and say 'here you are manage the houdehold budget for this week. And here they are going to be expected to understand the financial implications of the country. (which, incidentally I don't always understand properly.)

I’m not sure those supposed to be in charge can manage a household budget either.

There is that Names. you could be right.

When my cohort were mid-late teens we were in a cold war situation and a lot of my friends went on CND marches and ban the bomb demonstrations because we thought that morally that was the right thing to do. Most 16 year olds,if they are interested in the world around them at all, are idealists and that's great but, like us at that age, they don't yet have the experience to understand how changing one thing will affect something else. A few years down the line they will hopefully have kept their ideals but will be a bit more pragmatic about them. Maybe we should raise the voting age, lol.

I think you could be right Vera. Maybe make people wait until they are 25 to get the vote - and even get married! :-D

Kath. x

Well said Vera. The present govt seem to react with their ideals and don't seem to think through the impact or implications of anything they do as it is. Most at that age haven't enough knowledge or experience of how things work to be 'well rounded' in their views. When I did get the vote at an older age I didn't think I knew enough about how things like the economy worked to be given that responsibility to influence things.

The leader of Warwickshire County Council is 19 years old. Reform :-(