Lower the voting age to 16 ffs!

[Crispy]

Yup, make those voter apathy figures even higher!!

Or maybe come up with Big Pop Brother - MPs are scrutinsed in a large house for 4-5 years then we all get to vote them out in a phone/text/internet poll...

You know, I think you've stumbled on something there. Reverse voting. Politicians get randomly picked from a pool of volunteers and are then voted out of office if they fuck up...

 

[Groucho]

I know the Liberal Democrats want the vote at 16, and I think they ant prisoners to be able to vote at 16 as well. And I also remember the Lib Dems getting lots of stick when they made it policy that people should be allowed to buy, watch and take part in hardcore porn movies at 16. And I also heard they wanted people to be able to buy alcohol at 16 too.

I would agree with the Lib Dems on those points, and I would hope that when 16 year olds can vote they won't give their vote to the pro-privatisation Lib Dem party.

 

[Prince Rhyus]

Either lower the voting age or don't tax their earnings from employment. (As opposed to wealth parents throwing huge amounts of money into a bank account in the name of their 3 year old child as a tax scam.)

 

[John Grean]

No - you sign on for 22 years and if you want to leave before that you give a year's Notice To Terminate (NTT). There is also a period you can leave at during basic training (it was between your 2nd and 8th week when I did it, probably still the same.). Certain trades have to sign 'time bars' when they finish trade training because of the length and expense of their training (my trade has a 2 year time bar after Class 3 training and a 3 year bar after Class 1 for instance).

The only time you cannot NTT is during operations or when your unit has been warned off for an operation.

As I understand you used to have to serve a minimum of 3 years (ie. you could only give your 1 year NTT after 2 years).

However, I thought 16 year olds were exempt from the NTT until they were 18 and therefore served a minimum of 5 years.

But with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the resulting decline in recruitment and many personnel leaving, the minimum service for all soldiers was raised to 5 years regardless of age.

I may be wrong.

The recruitment decline was why the Army started a campaign a couple of years ago saying the British were too soft for the army (reverse psychology), and they started trying to recruit from former British colonies.

 

[subversplat]

can't see that many 16 year olds bothering.

I'd have probably been more up for voting as a 16 year old than the near-24 year old I am now.

Whether I'd want that me voting or not I'm not too sure I was very easily lead by more confident and charismatic politics types...

 

[Bigdavalad]

As I understand you used to have to serve a minimum of 3 years (ie. you could only give your 1 year NTT after 2 years).

However, I thought 16 year olds were exempt from the NTT until they were 18 and therefore served a minimum of 5 years.

But with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the resulting decline in recruitment and many personnel leaving, the minimum service for all soldiers was raised to 5 years regardless of age.

I may be wrong.

The recruitment decline was why the Army started a campaign a couple of years ago saying the British were too soft for the army (reverse psychology), and they started trying to recruit from former British colonies.

As far as I know, there's no minimum term of service anymore, outside of the time bar at the end of trade training. There's a lad who works for me thinking of signing off next year when his time bar runs out and he's only been in 2 and a bit years.

We've always recruited from the Commonwealth, although it really stepped up with the Fijians in about 2001 - there's a reason the Army have won the Army vs Navy rugby match 5 years in a row

 

[MikeMcc]

did you miraculously become all knowledgeable once you turned 18? Did you buggerry.

All the 'oh no they might not use it sensibly/at all' argument is a load of patronising old shite - and also the same as was said about women when there were arguments about them getting the vote.

I never suggested otherwise. But has too be a 'cut-off' point, I just think 18 (or possibly going back up to 21 would be better, because there is at least the possibility that experience outside of secondary school classrooms may have had an effect on the views they hold allowing for a better informed choice. Saying that though most of the population appears (IMO) to follow the voting practices of the parents / peers without really caring to understand the policies being presented anyway

 

[Azrael]

I'm quite in favour of the voting age remaining at 18, and wouldn't be averse to returning it to 21. The comparison with female suffrage is spurious: disenfranchising someone until they reach a certain maturity bears no relation to disenfranchising someone out of naked prejudice. If we follow this batty logic we'd have to remove age-qualifications entirely.

The majority (and I emphasise the majority) of 16 year olds simply lack the life experience and intellectual development to vote. I look back at my own views at 16, even 18, in horror. While I reluctantly support a universal franchise (I can't think of any qualification that wouldn't be abused the moment it was introduced), within that framework I enthusiastically support keeping the quality of debate as high as is practicable.

The shocking decline in political discourse is readily evident to anyone comparing Victorian and Edwardian debate with today's, and I don't think we need to debase it any further out of some flawed notion of equality.

 

[John Grean]

I'm quite in favour of the voting age remaining at 18, and wouldn't be averse to returning it to 21. The comparison with female suffrage is spurious: disenfranchising someone until they reach a certain maturity bears no relation to disenfranchising someone out of naked prejudice. If we follow this batty logic we'd have to remove age-qualifications entirely.

The majority (and I emphasise the majority) of 16 year olds simply lack the life experience and intellectual development to vote. I look back at my own views at 16, even 18, in horror. While I reluctantly support a universal franchise (I can't think of any qualification that wouldn't be abused the moment it was introduced), within that framework I enthusiastically support keeping the quality of debate as high as is practicable.

The shocking decline in political discourse is readily evident to anyone comparing Victorian and Edwardian debate with today's, and I don't think we need to debase it any further out of some flawed notion of equality.

Even David Dimbleby on Question Time a couple of weeks ago supported lowering votes to 16 on the basis that 16 year olds pay tax and therefore should have the right to say where that money goes.

Additionally, studies show most 16 and 17 year olds would vote Labour or Liberal as opposed to Tory which is good enough for me!

 

[Azrael]

Even David Dimbleby on Question Time a couple of weeks ago supported lowering votes to 16 on the basis that 16 year olds pay tax and therefore should have the right to say where that money goes.

Additionally, studies show most 16 and 17 year olds would vote Labour or Liberal as opposed to Tory which is good enough for me!

As Labour are easily the most authoritarian party right now, that just goes to prove my point.

Many people pay tax without voting rights. (Foreigners here on work visas, to give the main example.) However they're not citizens, so different rules ought to apply. Any citizen below the voting age should be exempt from taxation, but that can be an argument for raising taxation to 18 as much as lowering voting to 16. (So much for returning it to 21 unless I want to bankrupt the country.