The politics of reducing the voting age is an interesting debate being promoted by Labour and the Lib Dem’s and on the face of it appears like a natural extension of democracy but there in lays the warning, just why are Labour and the Lib Dem’s pushing this, they have no mandate for it.
So is reducing the voting age a natural extension of democracy or in politics a cynical ploy to rig the already rigged voting system?
Let us face it, the Labour government cynically rigged the voting system in their favour throughout their 13 years in office though not adjusting boundaries to take account of population movement and following an aggressive open immigration policy which ballooned our population in the assumption that they would be more likely to vote with a left-wing bias and the result is that the Conservative Party require between a 6% to 8% lead before they can even think about forming a government, Tony Blair even stated in a speech that he wanted to ensure the Conservative Party could never get elected again.
Now we get to the real politics of lowering the voting age, youngsters of 16 are just not mature enough to make a reasoned choice but if they do vote they are, by a wide margin, more likely to vote for left-wing politics, a large proportion of natural Conservative voters flirted with left-wing politics in their early years coming to a more mature view later on in life!
Nick Clegg has already stated that lowering the voting age to 16 will increase the chances of a Labour/Lib Dem coalition and this is essentially the aim, they will tell you it is to spread the voting franchise, to increase democracy and to increase the interest in politics by getting young people in the voting habit early, it is of course nothing of the kind, it will do nothing to increase voting, another coalition would be disaster for the country but it would increase the likelihood of Nick Clegg clinging to power and all that means to the country.
Conservative Party require between a 6% to 8% lead before they can even think about forming a government, Tony Blair even stated in a speech that he wanted to ensure the Conservative Party could never get elected again.
Wait now for a Labour/Lib Dem push to try and force Cameron into this before the next general election, he should be able to hold them off but it will be close, as it has always been, they have no creditable policies, no argument, no vision and no ideas other than to rig the system to get them into power and then that power will be made permanent through Proportional Representation (PR) coupled with ever deeper integration into the European Union and ever greater union power, it has absolutely nothing to do with democracy!Â
Labour to pledge to lower the voting age to 16 – Metro
Labour’s pledge to lower voting age makes coalition more likely, Lib Dems say – Telegraph.co.uk
If you have noticed lately the Labour attacks on the coalition are rarely about policy because they caused the financial mess we are just emerging from and they have no creditable ideas, all the labour attacks are based around smear tactics whilst the Lib Dem’s have scuppered the boundary reform which would have reversed 13 years of Labour gerrymandering with the electoral system so between them they have made a Labour/Lib Dem coalition more likely particularly if they pursue the reduction of voting age to 16, don’t be fooled at the next general election, it could be the most important in British history.
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