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Elimination Essays's avatar

16 year olds simply don't have enough political memory to enable an informed vote. A 16 year old voter in 2029 will have only been 11 years old in 2024, during the Southport stabbing, the riots and the following scandal. By allowing this person to vote, you create a new paradigm where an entire voting cohort was too young to have properly taken in any news stories or scandals that may have occurred in the first half of the current government's time in power. I didn't even begin thinking about "current events" on a deep level until I was 14-15, and that's probably earlier than average. Such a low voting age will only serve to retard government accountability.

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SBO's avatar

Re the discussion over who’ll benefit most I’m much more skeptical than most that Reform/Corbyn are the winners here and that this is a Starmer own goal.

Any polling or indeed amateur projection is only taking stock of the current environment. I haven’t seen anyone take into account how the curriculum and more generally the school environment might respond to voting becoming an actual school-age activity.

There are endless means available where teachers are instructed to encourage ‘voting sensibly’ and all the rest. It should go without saying, but teachers are on average boring Labour types and not Reform or Corbyn supporters. I don’t think they’ll hesitate to ever so subtly nudge their pupils towards the sensible adults. Frankly, I think if Starmer sees this through to its logical conclusion, this could be one of his more shrewd moves.

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