Labour have reneged on promise about single sex spaces - again!

[Grammarnut]

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Funherd.com%2Fnewsroom%2Flabour-has-broken-its-promises-on-single-sex-spaces%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cef393d22361f46be8cdf08dd20eed235%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638702932278035316%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=dmprXRzPkV4uqQqML17gwYojVMazkrZSydzRsEButNA%3D&reserved=0

Sorry that's so long. It's an article in Unherd a friend just sent me. Labour have said companies that allow mixed sex changing rooms can do so as long as they do not say it is the law, but just their own policy!
The article quotes Dr Michael Foran ('expert on equality law'): 'Important development on the govs [sic] position on single-sex services, suggesting it is lawful to operate a single-sex service on a mixed-sex basis determined by Self-ID,”
Sorry if there is another thread, I couldn't find one and think this (from the Equality and Women's Minister, Dodds) is all of a piece with the reneging on promises to the Waspi women, and the loss of the Winter Fuel Allowance that massively impacts women pensioners, especially those living alone.

This is why they want to bring the voting age down to 16.

Yes! That’s probably why Nicola Sturgeon was so keen on lowering the voting age too. This group of politicians are all of the barmy idea that children should be deciding policies for the country (and the world in Greta Thunberg’s case) 🙄

Idealism can be useful but experience and practicality are important too.

In 1969 we lowered the voting age to 18 from 21, and it didn't seem to lead to wild eyed idealism. Low turnout and a Tory government were what happened. I don't think it's a "barmy idea" to reduce the voting age to 16 at all, but it's certainly barmy to believe that this will somehow inject a kind of adolescent passion for justice and purity of purpose into the process.

Except that sixteen-year-olds are legally children? Children should not be deciding government policy.
In 1968 the voting age was lowered to 18. At that time most 18-year-olds were in full-time work, with only a minority still at school, college or university. They had been in work for two or three years, as well.
All 16-year-olds currently in the UK are schoolchildren. Anyone can see the difference from the situation in 1968, surely?

@Grammarnut,

Yes, you're right. But I'm not saying I'm in favour of enfranchising 16 year olds, just that the idea isn't barmy. I can see it happening, but perhaps not in the immediate future. People enter adulthood at different ages for different purposes. A 16 year old can ride a moped or dirt bike on the road. You are criminally responsible at 10 in England and Wales, 12 in Scotland. But I'd bet a fiver that if the age was reduced, everyone would be amazed at how boring and conservative the 16-18 years are (at least, the ones who bother to get up).

Any argument which demands competence in voters is inherently undemocratic, as it gives the government too much power. "Competence" has never been used to grant the vote, only to deny it to disenfranchised groups. I've been voting for nearly 50 years, and no one has ever asked if I was a fit person to do so or if my judgement was sound and well informed. And neither should they! Can't have the government deciding who can vote for it and who can't.

And, by the way, that's why the vote shouldn't be taken away from prisoners routinely. Disenfranchising groups should not be in the routine power of the government. If a prisoner is to be stripped of their voting right, I want to hear a judge say it, each time, with reasons. Otherwise the vote stops being a right and degenerates into being a licence, held at the government's whim.

@JustSpeculation I agree with you entirely. I have voted for 55 years (since the age of voting was lowered to 18, in fact) and I am appalled by the various ways in which elites try to disenfranchise groups they may disagree with - this being most obvious in the US and after Brexit in the UK, and to some extent in some former Warsaw Pact countries over EU referendums. Whatever I think of Brexit, depriving older people or less educated people of the vote - as some wanted - is beyond the pale; the only qualification is being a citizen over voting age. I also recall that the Scottish administration lowered the voting age to 16 for the Independence Referendum, assuming that most 16-year-olds were imbued with the romanticism of independence - and forgetting that most people vote tribally, or in accordance with their family needs and those of their social network.

I just think 16 is a bit young to be voting in elections.

However, if Labour thinks lowering the voting age to 16 will result in a higher % of the vote to them (they won on a minority vote this year) I am strongly of the opinion they will be as disappointed as Nicola Sturgeon.

@Grammarnut

I just think 16 is a bit young to be voting in elections.

I agree with everything except this bit. I think there's no pressing need - I certainly don't think that 16 year olds need to vote to redress some cosmic intergenerational grievance, or to put Society in tune with eternal principles of social justice, but I really don't see what harm it would cause.

"but I really don't see what harm it would cause."

Maybe we should flip this over and ask if it’s right for adult to burden 16 year old’s with an adult responsibility. Is it right to expect them to make a decision on something they mostly have no interest in, and don’t have the ability to comprehend due to lack of knowledge as well as no interest in. They will, one hopes, have to develop an awareness eventually but why rush them into it.