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Votes at 16 – do you see its importance?
The Liberal Democrats did a sudden U-turn on this tonight, but Stella Creasy MP for Walthamstow managed to get several MPs to attend the vote in the House of Commons by tweeting about it. The support for lowering the voting age has been steadily growing in the UK, and has become a reality in many parts of the British Isles. In the Channel Islands, 16 and 17 year olds already enjoy the vote and although it is a reserved matter the ruling party in Scotland, the SNP, recently passed a policy motion in support of the rights of 16 year olds to vote.
There are also international precedents with some German Lãnder reducing the voting age to 16 for local and regional elections some years ago. Last year Austria reduced the voting age to 16 for all public elections. There are active Votes at 16 cam- paigns across Europe, and it has been adopted by the European Youth Parliament. There are substantial moves afoot for radical reform of the electoral system, not least the big AV vote. Do you think that votes at 16 is a good idea, in a week that mooted lowering the age of sexual consent to 14?
Oh, by the way, if someone complains about the use of the Ishihara plate because it diagnoses colour blindness, may I say in my defence my father is colour-blind, and that this picture is to make the point whether ‘votes at 16′ makes a perceivable difference.
Dr Shibley Rahman is a research physician and research lawyer by training.
Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors
The morning after the night before
I went to bed at 5 am this morning, and woke up at 7 am this morning. I feel dreadful and probably like Sarah Teather MP new elected MP for Brent I need to sleep. I am only surviving on adrenaline and caffeine, not the excitement of Iain Dale running naked down Whitehall, London, because he lost his confident bet about the number of seats that the Lib Dems woud get.
Whilst it was not a treat night for us, I feel in many ways it’s been very successful. Bear in the Conservatives had the whole of the BBC spitting bullets at us (as they are now), along with Sky, Times, the Sunday Times, Telegraph, Sun, Sunday Times, News of the World. The constitution convention, as clarified recently by the Government’s cabinet office, is that the PM can decide to broker a coalition with another party, in the event of a hung parliament. David Cameron convincingly got nowhere the finishing the line, and therefore a significant section of the public will find it contemptible if he (Cameron) attempts to become the self-proclaimed King.
Nick Clegg has stuck to his word in saying that he would let the largest party with the biggest share take pole position, but he should not smugly defy the Queen through defiance of her conventions. He could risk getting into bed with the Tories, but this would be a big risk. If he takes up Brown’s offer of talks through the civil service, if the time comes, he can accept a referendum on electoral reform which Cameron would have to match. Also, the other sticking point is that the Queen’s Speech on May 25th would ask for a mandate for a minority Conservative government for savage cuts. If Clegg removes effectively the Tory whip on his cohort of 56 Lib Dem MPs, possibly Cameron’s firs Queen’s Speech could get voted down. In the national interest, not Cameron’s interst, there is therefore a convincing case for why Clegg should “have a second look at Labour”, because, if he doesn’t, he may lose his first chance for electoral reform in 95 years.
