16 and 17 year old getting the vote.

[Pixxie7]

Is it me or is the idea of 16 and 17 year olds worrying. Where does it lead and are we destroying their childhood. Whilst I appreciate there a few who understand the implications of a vote many do not.

Grumpyhoonman@ I agree but how many of us would want our children to do any of these things at the age of 16?

I junk many 16 year olds are better informed than many older than them. At 16 you are deemed an adult in so many other ways, of course they should get the vote.

Scotland allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote for our parliament. I've found many teenagers understand more than I do. Dd certainly does her research into which party should get her vote.

As she pointed out she missed out being able to vote in the referendum yet it was her future that was concerned by brexit.

Yes my teens are angry about that. Family members who voted leave have since died leaving a pile of shit for youngsters to live with for decades to come.

I can see both side of this but the vast majority of 16 year old I have known and include a nephew now, have not or do not know enough about politics to make an actual informed decision in order to vote. I always think that to vote you should be able to understand what and why you are voting for a particular party not just put an x on a ballot paper just because you can.

But many adults don’t know that and most 16 year olds are coming to the end of school life which is very proactive and up to date with current affairs. They all sit Eng Lang which examines texts often political( my dc have a political/ current affairs text to read each week). They sit through assemblies, PSHE lessons, many do history, have debates, are encouraged to read newspapers, watch the news and study other subjects which encompass politics. I have 3 teens around that age and they know more than their elderly relatives.

do not know enough about politics to make an actual informed decision in order to vote but that applies to large proportions of over 18s too. At least if they are still in education you can cover it in lessons. Their political viewpoints may change with age but a large part of the problem is engagement. If they still live at home their parents are likely to arrange the voting registration as many young adults fail to do this. It gets them into the habit of voting.

Plus you can leave school and pay taxes/NI at 16

Not anymore, unless you join the military or do an apprenticeship.

Na, I don't think 16 year olds should have the vote. I know I and the people around me at that age had extremely surface level, black and white knowledge of politics, based on what the people around me were saying and the culture at my school. You need an element of life experience in the real world and time to mature to recognise what the important issues are, and your priorities are going to be very different when you're effectively a child at home. I cringe at some at the juvenile, utopian standpoints I had back then, and am glad my vote didn't get to shape the country. Yes, not every adult voter is informed. But if you dont pay tax then your little opinions can be kept to yourself about how it should be spent.

So the huge numbers of adults not paying tax shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Nearly half of UK adults don’t pay income tax.

Given that a third of 18 year olds aren't registered expecting 16 yr olds to be bothered is optimistic.
There probably are teens out there genuinely interested but many more are not.Not all schools do any political discussing at all unless you count one of DDS teachers telling them at every opportunity that they would not gets decent education or jobs if we left the EU.
Most kids at the moment do know who our Prime Minister is and who is the US President but for all the wrong reasons.

I'm not sure if 16 year olds have enough knowledge to vote. I'm actually unsure about 18 year olds too!

Not all of them will have parents who educate them about politics. I didn't and I knew nothing about it at that age.

Also even if they do have that knowledge, they don't have any life experience and I think that's important. My political views changed drastically once I joined the working world and had personal experience of things like the benefit system.

Dd has just turned 16 and as we are in Scotland she can vote in Scottish elections. I think this is a good thing. Through lots of discussion we and her have come to realise she does have a lot of her own very strong political opinions and has her own voice appearing. Her and her peers are the next generation and it’s their future they are voting for.
She could
Leave home, get married and work full-time now if she chose to if it is believed she is mature enough to do that why shouldn’t she be allowed to vote?

We’ve just had NI numbers through. I think 16 should automatically be registered to vote in the same way.

The fact that 16 and 17 year olds couldn't vote in the Brexit referendum and will likely be dealing with the consequences their whole, long lives, is dreadful

I don't disagree but what about the 14 year olds? They too will have to deal with the fall out. There has to be a cut off at some point.

Boris Johnson knows a lot of young people won’t vote him

Why are they better informed? Their information is influenced by parents and teachers in the main.
The majority are unlikely to have any experience of paying bills, the cost of living or meeting people from different sectors of society.
Not sure 18 year olds have much of a clue either but they are adults and (technically) have responsibility for themselves. Regardless of paying tax or being unemployed they are expected to.

What gave Greta the idea to campaign against climate change? She was aged 8 when she started. Should we allow a vote then?

It's an excellent thing.

All of the 16,17 & even 15 year olds we know can run rings around many adults we know as far as politics go & they are rightly very angry

When I was in sixth form the idea of telling people to gave less children to save the planet was considered horribly racist.
Lots of my peers would have voted for a party that sounded on message rather than thinking critically about the policy. It will be the same today.

There was an MP on tv the other day who said “nobody born in this century was able to vote in the last referendum and those are the people it most affects”. Struck home with me a bit that.

I think it’s a good idea. You’ll have the 16 year olds who’d rather be playing COD and won’t be bothered but there will be a portion interested in their own futures that are capable of critical thought.

After all we let Daily Mail readers vote

I read both the daily Mail and the Guardian on a daily basis.

If you were only to read the Guardian you would not have any idea of what was actually going in most working class people's every day life. This is important knowledge when deciding where to put your vote.
At the same time there are some pretty rubbishy articles in it.

The Guardian is my favourite paper as it has more international news an d an active 'opinion' page. Unfortunately the opinion page only allows readers comments on subjects which are not deemed in any way likely to have views which are different from the Guardians quite leftwing stance.

If you need a relatively complete picture of what's going on in the country you need to look at both.

ref above, I mean that the Daily Mail says what's really going on in people's lives in this country but it also has some pretty rubbishy articles in it.

Sorry, sent before I re-read

I think it would be a good idea as you can work and have children at 16.

Also, I think a lot of people are actually more politically engaged between 16-25ish before they get worn down by thinking about 100 other things like work/broken boilers/dc settling in at nursery/parents starting to get on a bit.
I certainly had time to go on a lot more marches before DS was born!