16 & 17 year olds to be given the vote

[Whereishenow]

Just seen this announcement on BBC now. Amazing news!!! Now we just need to try and get youngsters out USING those votes.

If you think that between a choice of 16 year olds voting or pensioners voting, you would prefer to pick 16 year olds to vote then i would suggest your judgement is poor.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how LLMs work, they don't aggregate opinions for starters.

Hardly.

My father in law had the vote for 5 years whilst he was riddled with dementia. Didn’t know what day it was, but he could vote. There also reaches a point where you’re voting for policies you’re not going to see enacted.

Young people should have the vote. Lots of them are informed, and would actually look into the subject, and it’s their future.

I think the unspoken concern for a lot of people is that this change may permanently expand that cohort of the electorate that prioritises high levels of gov spending, without remembering that economies have to grow in order for the gov to be able to spend more. We are already in such trouble, with the increases to employer NI etc. it’s a huge worry, especially when you see job creation numbers going into reverse and I think about my children in their 20s. When you see this kind of news, it just adds to the feeling that we are only heading in one direction.

People voted for Brexit , but 16 year olds will make things worse for this country?

I think they’ll be attracted to the newer parties. It’ll shift some polling but maybe not as Labour wants.

And I'd suggest you're a pensioner!

For someone who claims not to be confused, you are struggling to make an ounce of sense or post anything remotely intelligible.

Nope not confused at all. Why you playing that card? Who benefits from that?

Do you want everyone who is not convicted of rape to be punished for it, or just this one individual?

Most pensioners have a lot more sense than 16 year olds. 16 is too young to vote. They know nothing about how the world works, they are school kids. When the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1968/9 most 18 year olds had been at work for 3 years - school leaving age not raised to 16 till 1968, so most people affected had left school at 15 and got a job/apprenticeship (10% went to university or college). Those 18 year olds understood about tax, money, paying rent/board and the economics of family life - modern ones do not have a clue about most of this.

It's my future too - I have about 20 years left, that's a lot of elections.
I doubt your FiL voted.

You only quoted one phrase from my first post and ignored the rest, but that's okay.

It's fascinating and somewhat amusing to see people blaming boomers for the shortcomings of every generation, including their own.

I'm pretty sure teenagers today also criticize your generation quite a lot. I'm sure many edgier teenagers see your generation as responsible for their problems. It's just the cycle of life.

But it’s not either/or.

We’re not suggesting taking the vote from anyone, just giving it to people who it also impacts and are at the age where many of them can make sensible choices.

Those who can’t, aren’t any more likely to once they hit 18.

ETA - he did, until he was no longer able to take himself, and then we didn’t take him

They interviewed a few girls on BBC News and the planet and eco stuff was mentioned a lot, one said that euthanasia was a positive thing, a couple of boys they interviewed didn't really say much.

Oh come on.

It's silly to suggest a healthy pensioner has less wisdom than your average 16 year old.

You can't really dismiss decades of life experience. And no, I'm nowhere near being a pensioner. That's just being eristic.

Me too many have right wing (not necessarily extreme, although some are) views. The majority in fact

Im not supportive of 16 year olds getting the vote, not for that reason but its a nonsense given the way society over the last 20 years or so has infantilised young people, giving them less and less day to day responsbility and expectation, blathering on about brain development and how school and college work is so overwhelming for them they cant do part time jobs.

The younger generations IME absolutely do see that generation as a bit of an eye roll case.

So you think your golden 17y/o should have the vote because they agree with your liberal political views but your elderly parents and step-parents shouldn’t because their opinions and politics don’t match yours? At least they actually have a lot of life experience under their belts and accordingly, they are perfectly entitled to hold whatever views they hold.

Plenty of 16 year olds are more mature than many adults? 🙄 Please! I’ve taught hundreds of teenagers over 20 years and I can tell you that’s bollocks.

I can tell you now most 16 year olds would have voted for Brexit. Why anyone thinks 16 year olds have a vastly different political view to the majority (the majority of this country leans to the right) I do not know.

It really is such bollocks.

I think this thread is either full of either people who are blinded by the "genius" and compelling fascination of their own dc or people who tend toward 16 year-oldish views themselves.

I was on a car trip with a friend and her 16 year old son and his friend a short while ago during which both of them aired their "oh-so-evolved" views for the duration. Both bright, strings of 9s at gcses (since that seems to be the justification for voting, that they have sat that bundle of papers). Both nice kids but ... honestly: voting? The 19 year old sibling was eye-rolling as much as his mum and I were. 16 is not very mature. Those are years of change and development.

This is not a good development. Young people are far, far kore vulnerable to manipulation, especially by social media. I don’t believe the majority of 16 year olds can make an informed voting choice.

Honestly I dont think "life experience" is the only thing that matters here. I don't think elderly should lose the vote (obviously) but I just don't get the idea that they're going to be more in touch with the country than 16/17 year olds. Retired people have a fixed income, they generally have secure housing, they don't need to worry about jobs / housing / education in the main. In fact they're generally completely out of touch with the world of education and plenty of another areas too. It's been shown time and again that as a cohort they had a lot of benefits that they vote against for younger folk today.
They are also obviously less motivated on a personal level to care about long term issues.

Oh and for the record I'm no spring chicken myself at 50 and I work with A level aged kids.