Naive 16-year-olds are too immature to vote | Clive Smith

There’s a saying, often attributed to Churchill, that goes something like: ‘If you vote Conservative before the age of 30 you have no heart, but if you vote socialist after the age of 30 you have no head.’
Is 16 to young to vote in a general election?Is 16 to young to vote in a general election?
Is 16 to young to vote in a general election?

It nicely captures the notion that to be on the left of the political spectrum is to be young and idealistic, while being right-leaning is to be older and wiser.

When you’re young there are fairies at the bottom of the garden and money grows on trees, but as you get older, with more life experience, the only thing at the bottom of the garden is a shed and most of the money you see disappears no sooner than you have got it.

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So, it’s no surprise that there are calls for 16-year-olds to be given a vote as it’s pretty obvious where their cross would go on the ballot paper.

The thing is though, teenagers nowadays don’t even know what gender they are. And a difference of opinion equals hate speech.

And you have politicians saying 16-year-old terrorists are apparently groomed and didn’t know what they were doing, but then the same politician will say they’re mature enough to vote. Can you really have it both ways?

It also brings about the discussion about politics being taught in schools.

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Other than the home, this is where kids develop their political ideas. It would be all well and good if the subject were taught without bias. But I fear pupils would be too easily steered towards one point of view depending on their teacher’s political stance.

And with what my kids come home from school saying, I doubt very much there is much neutral teaching going on.

I’m not saying I want teachers turning up to school draped in the Union Flag and screaming the national anthem before each lesson, but a fair representation wouldn’t go amiss.

Although saying all this about the young vote, I’m not convinced even the front benches in parliament have a clue what they’re talking about.

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They’ve probably ended up there the same way as everyone else gets a job – making up a few GCSE results and a load of guff in the interview about ‘how great I am for this role’.​​​​​​​

No-one wanted cheap TVs, just a family of odd carrots

About the time of Black Friday we’ve become used to seeing hordes of shoppers descend on supermarkets to grab supposedly heavily-discounted goods such as TVs. We’re also treated to seeing scruffs in their food-stained T-shirts fighting each other for these ‘bargains’.

Not this year though. It was all quiet and I know why. They were saving themselves for a trip to Aldi to get soft toy Kevin the Carrot and family.

People queued for hours and predictably the arguing started and trolleys were used to ram people.

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Someone at work sent her poor husband there first thing to get them. I had to see a whole family of carrot soft toys when I arrived at the office. Marvellous.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

You cannot blame cinema chains for banning gang film

Vue and Showcase cinemas have come under fire as ‘institutional racists’ after pulling the film Blue Story after 25 significant incidents within 24 hours of the movie’s release. One screening in Birmingham saw fighting involving up to 100 people and a machete.

Apparently we should learn to accept that fights involving large-bladed weapons are just a part of the cinema-going experience nowadays. I guess popcorn just doesn’t cut it any more.

Imagine taking your kids to watch Frozen 2 and there are gangs of savages attacking each other with blades.

If Blue Story attracts these kinds of people then, as a business, of course you’d want to ban it.

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