POLITICAL COMMENTARY
Youth and the swinging seventies
AUBERON WAUGH
Tuesday of next week is the last day on which voters can claim to be included in the 1970 electoral register. Until then, the lists are open for anyone of sixteen and a half years of age or more. Those under the age of eighteen at the time of registering will receive at least two birthday cards, from each of the two major parties. This will be followed by various other pieces of advice or exhortation between now and the elec- tion, and it might be instructive to follow the stages by which first the Conservatives then Labour hope to lead their young voters to the water.
The Tories send a tall, thin birthday card with yellow border and a yellow 'X', which might be thought to signify a kiss, with the message: 'This is something very special for you on your eighteenth birthday.' Inside is written `—your vote! Congratulations!' Labour, on the other hand, sends a long, thin birthday card, with the legend: 'Now you're eighteen, it's party time!' Inside they have printed: 'You can vote for one now you're eighteen. Thanks to Labour you've got the vote. Make sure you use it.'
' Of the two, I would have said that the Conservative greeting was slightly less likely to cause offence. There is something both bossy and condescending about the Labour message, whereas the Tories are merely facetious. However, neither party is going to give up the prospect of two and a half million voters between eighteen and twenty- one quite as easily as that. The next thing to arrive will be a post-birthday card from Labour, showing a boy and a girl together, the girl saying 'Darling! Now we're eighteen we can do something we've always wanted to do . . .' Many of Labour's older supporters have been offended by this, suggesting that it contains some implied reference to sexual intercourse. If so, one can only say that Transport House betrays the most appalling ignorance. of these things.
The Conservative follow-up is more de- tailed. A pamphlet shows a clean-limbed young couple gazing into the future. The message runs: 'It's your country. It's your life. What do you think?' Six questions follow: Is Britain still a land of oppor- tunity? Are politicians really necessary? Is too much taken out of your wage packet? Do you think enough is being done for people who are not as well off as you are? What are your chances of owning your own house one day? Should politicians always speak the truth? Boxes are provided with helpful suggestions towards your answer, thus: Yes/no; good/fair /remote; yes/it de- pends on the circumstances/no, they should say whatever is expedient.
Teenage voters are requested to tick their answers—`then turn over to find out how the. Conservatives stand on the important questions. If your views are broadly the same as ours—or even if they are completely opposite—you may feel that you would like to meet others who are as interested in the future as you are.' What on earth made them decide that all teenagers were interested in the future? Many teenagers are among the least interested-in-the-future people I know.
On that evidence, the open-minded teen- age voter would probably choose to vote Labour;- for while Labour's effort is mildly fatuous, the Tories' is actually offensive. Next, the teenage voter, having assured a canvasser that he intends to vote Labour, will receive three coloured balloons, orange, blue and green. Inflated, they carry the message: 'When it comes down to it—aren't Labour's ideals yours as well?' With them come six assorted tin badges: 'I'm a soul mate, mate!'; `I'm the life and soul of the party'; 'Let's go with life and soul' and other variations on the same theme.
To counteract it the Tories invite you to join the Young Conservatives. 'They organ- ise a lively social programme to suit mem- bers' tastes and pockets. Dances, rallies, meetings, trips are some of the ways YCS get to know each other.' If that isn't an invita- tion to sexual intercourse in one form or another, I am an old age pensioner. But the list of qualifications for these pleasures is fairly strict: 'If you feel like this . . . You're under thirty. You believe the Conservatives make more sense than the other parties. You're alive to the fact that you're living in a changing world. You like people: working with them and relaxing with them [heh, heh—pol. corr.). You want to be on the in- side of events, to meet the people who are making things tick. You want to do some- thing as opposed to just talking . . . you'll enjoy being one.
Later, we are told 'Young Conservatives really get listened to.. They meet the leading people in the party face to face'. No doubt they do, poor brutes—and they're not even paid for it, like I am, as they confront Mr Quintin Hogg, Mr Peter Gorgeous Walker, Sir Alec (In the name of the Father') Doug- las—(`and of the Holy Ghost')—Home and all the other people who are making things tick.
Now, I don't want to be rude about the Young Conservatives. Another, even more expensively produced pamphlet describes them as 'the livliest [sic] young people in British politics'. They may or may not be livly (sic), but since they have proved the only body in the Conservative party capable of organising themselves against the Shadow Cabinet's disastrous policy in Nigeria-Biafra, they will always be treated in this column at least as something rather lovly. On the other hand, it is no good pretending that any of these heavily qualified invitations to meet people who tick is going to inspire the teenage voter on a national scale. In fact, so far as actually winning a single teenage vote is concerned, the efforts of both major parties, if they are noticed at all, are likely to be counter-productive, At the time of writing, only 60 per of those under twenty-one who will entitled to vote if the election is held n year have bothered to register. In Cen Office, it is felt that the 40 per cent who h not registered almost certainly came f predominantly lower working class, hence Labour, backgrounds. This consid tion may have added passion to Mr Call han's eloquent, statesmanlike and non-pa san appeal on Monday night when advised everybody to register before it too late, but it is unlikely that many will n be moved to comply.
Ranged against the Tories in t attempts to win the teenage vote (apart f their awkward manners and the fact they all tick so alarmingly) is the considc tion that these voters have no memory of Tories' golden wasted thirteen years, and no means of comparison. Tories might ad the old Labour slogan : 'Ask your D Even if they don't, however, there is N little sign that the new voters intend to anything else. While there is a noticea tendency among younger voters to fol the fashion, which, coupled with a cer anti-government bias, should certainly h the Tories this time,. there is even m evidence, from opinion polls, that yo voters will choose whatever party suggests.
Far less stable in their allegiance than young are the old. As by-election eviden sifted, it becomes increasingly clear whereas the traditional Labour cloth voter may be abstaining these days, his ditional Labour, parents are hobbling do to the polling booth to vote Tory in thousands. For the student of politics, is one of the more enjoyable paradoxes our time. Despite the very considerable crease in the real value of their old age sions of which Labour can boast, and pite the brutal and swingeing incre promised by Mr Crossman for the n government, these pensioners are registe their discontent at the rising cost of living switching the voting habits of a lifetime.
Perhaps they are too stupid, or perhaps sufficiently interested in the matter, to account of the Tories' plans for raising price of food. My own explanation is this is one of the odder by-products of our's five purposive years, that nobody lieves anything the politicians say any even if they are promising to make life disagreeable. Whatever the reason, the remains that the swinging seventy-year are a far more volatile force in politics present than the dozy, sex-obsessed teena ever seem likely to be. Workers may abs but pensioners have very little else to do vote when an election is on. The time w Labour spends urging young people to v might more profitably be spent urging old people to stay at home.
Every consideration which counts in Tories' favour for this election will against them for the next one, of course• times, it has seemed that they might e succeed in losing this election, if anyone to take a hard look at their policies East Suez, their new agricultural policy and extraordinarily inept handling of for affairs in opposition. But it seems into able that they will be able to win a term of office. Perhaps they will just time to pop in, hang Michael Stewart, pop out again. If so, I hope at least Labour's next campaign will keep about such things as ideals and soul—if out of respect to the memory of a s hard-working Foreign Secretary;
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