Catch the voters young
From Ferdinand Mount
Sir: I am not in the least surprised that apprehensive commentators like Charles Moore should recoil from the Power Commission’s proposal to lower the voting age to 16 (The Spectator’s Notes, 4 March). They were almost guaranteed to grab the wrong end of the stick with both hands. The assumption behind our proposal is not, as they imagine, that we think 16-year-olds are all bursting with indecent enthusiasm to vote. Precisely the contrary. Young people are the category least likely to vote, along with the poor and some but not all ethnic minorities, and this trend has worsened sharply in recent elections. Worse still, young people who don’t contract the habit of voting no longer seem to pick it up as they grow older. Which is why we suggest a kind of political confirmation service, in which all school-leavers would receive a brisk course in the history and workings of the British political system and then be automatically and individually entered on the voters’ register on their 16th birthday. This is the last chance to reach everyone before they drift away. If the school-leaving age were 18, there would be no need to change the voting age to achieve this. Catch them young or you won’t catch them at all, to paraphrase the old Jesuit adage.
Ferdinand Mount London N1
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