Is pop star Jamelia right to say old people should be denied the vote? – Clive Smith

With the shambles that is parliament at the moment there have been calls from people to change the voting age. The thinking here I’m sure is that with a younger voting population results such as Brexit would not happen again.
Clive says Jamelia's views on older people voting are fascistClive says Jamelia's views on older people voting are fascist
Clive says Jamelia's views on older people voting are fascist

What utter nonsense.

Talking about over-75s, singer Jamelia weighed in by saying ‘I just don’t think it’s fair that you have a vote when you’re not going to experience the consequences of that vote.’

How disrespectful is that? She’s advocating marginalising a section of society to suit her own agenda.

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Is this not just a little fascist? Had these over-75s not fought a world war I’m sure someone born from immigrant parents (as she was) would not have been around to spout such rubbish.

And there also seems to be a growing voice to reduce the voting age to 16. You can have a counter argument here – what has a 16-year-old contributed to the country to earn the right to vote?

Most 16 year olds I know are more concerned with latest YouTube sensation than retirement age and pension contributions.

They’re not worldly enough to vote.

People over 75 have lived through wars, recessions, different governments. An older person’s wisdom balances out a younger person’s naivety.

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In law, 16 year olds are still children. They can’t buy cigarettes, alcohol, can’t put their paper round money on some donkey in the Grand National, visit a casino or watch films like Natural Born Killers.

We don’t treat them like adults, so why give them an adult vote?

Maybe we should just offer a vote to everyone from the age of five as this will reflect the behaviour of our MPs in parliament during Prime Minister’s Question Time.

Many older people have more time to watch the news and see what is going on than those who are too busy to keep up.

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They know what it’s like to be younger, but young people don’t know what it is like to be older.

In times gone by elders were held in respect, not seen as dead wood.

What sort of idiot must you be to drive a car blindfolded? 

The year’s only just begun and we already we have some contenders to win the Darwin Award 2019. 

Police in Utah had to release a statement urging people not to drive blindfolded after a challenge inspired by the horror film Bird Box caused a crash. 

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A girl with her hat pulled over her eyes drove into oncoming traffic while taking part in the so-called bird box challenge.

If police have to warn you not to wear a blindfold when driving then you shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house without a carer, let alone take control of a car.

I then read about an idiot walking down train tracks blindfolded. Natural selection at its finest.

How could anyone possibly miss boring Andy Murray? 

Andy Murray may have played his last tennis match and I have to admit when he first appeared on the scene I wasn’t overly impressed.

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I found him mediocre and boring. And after all these years, has he grown on me? Not a bit.

I can’t understand the outpouring of emotion about his possible retirement. I’ve seen words such as ‘sad’, ‘devastated’ and even ‘poor, poor man’ being used to describe it. 

He’s a multi-millionaire sportsman, why feel sorry for him? Some people are calling him the best British sportsman of all time. 

Behave. He isn’t even the best to come from Scotland. Stephen Hendry, Chris Hoy, Jocky Wilson...