Keir Starmer is to give children the vote as he lowers the voting age to 16 at the next General Election, despite claims that it’s “rigging” the result and half of teens themselves opposing the move. The Mail has more.
Ministers today unveiled plans they said would “modernise our democracy” by widening the franchise to bring national elections in line with those held in Scotland and Wales.
But the move, a manifesto pledge from the party, has been criticised as a cynical ploy since a large proportion of young voters support Labour.
In a blow to the party, however, it has emerged that almost half of teenagers do not even want to be given the vote.
In a poll, some 49% of those questioned said they disagreed with the move. Only a few more of the 500 youths questioned by Merlin Strategy, 51%, backed Labour’s proposal.
In addition, only 18% of the 16 and 17 year-olds polled said they would definitely cast a ballot if there was an election tomorrow – with 13% saying they would not take part.
But of those who would vote, 33% would back Labour, the highest support for any party.
Sir Keir Starmer told ITV News: ‘I think it’s really important that 16 and 17 year-olds have the vote, because they are old enough to go out to work, they are old enough to pay taxes, so pay in.
“And I think if you pay in, you should have the opportunity to say what you want your money spent on, which way the Government should go.”
But a Tory source said: “This is bare-faced ballot box stuffing. It’s a sign of desperation this failing Labour government is resorting to underhand tactics and rigging extra votes to try and cling on to power for longer.'”
Ministers are also proposing to introduce automated voter registration, which is already used in Australia and Canada, and making UK-issued bank cards an accepted form of ID at polling stations.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said “far too many people” had been put off voting by the voter ID rules introduced by the previous government, with the Electoral Commission finding around 750,000 people did not vote due to a lack of ID.
The Government has already made the Veteran Card an accepted form of voter ID, and intends to allow digital forms of ID to be used when they become available.
Pollster Luke Tryl tweeted that the public were strongly opposed to the move: “When we asked about lowering the voting age to 16 last year the public tended to oppose the proposals. By a 48% to 27% margin.”
Former Tory Cabinet minister Sir Simon Clarke called it “Shameless gerrymandering.”
If we don’t think 16 is the age of adult maturity, why is the Government doing this?
Paul Holmes, the Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government, called it “hopelessly confused”. He told MPs:
This strategy has finally revealed their ambition for allowing a 16 year-old to vote in an election but not stand in it, probably because young people are being abandoned in droves by the Labour Party.
So why does this Government think a 16 year-old can vote but not be allowed to buy a lottery ticket, an alcoholic drink, marry or go to war or even stand in the elections they’re voting in? Isn’t the Government’s position on the age of majority just hopelessly confused?
Richard Tice, the Deputy Leader of Reform UK, said Labour had handed the vote to “children”. He told the Telegraph:
Totally wrong that children, by legal definition, should be allowed to vote whilst almost all still in school or college.
But will the next Conservative or Right-wing Government reverse it? Has the Right ever reversed any of the Left’s ill-conceived social reforms?
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Mask effects are:
1-You are advertising yourself as an idiot
2-You are admitting you are ugly
3-Both 1 and 2
You eat bacteria, co2, plastic carcinogens and reduce oxygen levels and they do nothing against a 0.03 sized nano sized particle I am not the science but I would classify that as unhealthy.
It’s staggering it has taken 3 years
An A level science class could design the experiment
‘….for years and years and years the Chief Medical Officers and their departments are supposed to have been preparing for the next pandemic, they even had some high-placed people doing that, importantly, and yet they had completely failed to invest in assessment and development of physical interventions, new physical interventions, and even new materials and new technologies. They have completely failed to do that…’
That kind of comment could no doubt read across to most sectors of government in this country, all the while intervening with regulations to make life more difficult, expensive for private citizens, the private sector, ‘net zero’ being the most remarkably stupid example ‘de nos jours’
I looked up the C.V. of a particular MP this morning: ‘After her graduation (University of Sussex)…. became a policy adviser to her father, in his role as a MEP. Prior to her election she was chief executive of the National Pony Society, an animal welfare charity…..and then a local borough councillor…..’
Belgium showed us the way:
‘….the longest period in which a country has been without an elected government, at 589 days’
Sort of related, but were people aware of this? Football regulator: New white paper delayed until later this month – BBC Sport
The publication of the UK government’s long-awaited white paper proposing reforms to shake up football has been delayed to later this month.
So we’re in a perma-crisis but the government has time to poke its nose into FOOTBALL – a sport that appears to be thriving at every level – popular, not short of money. If there was ever a non-problem, football in the UK is it (and even if it were a problem, WTAF does it have to do with HMG?). The “Culture secretary” is involved. Why do we need a “Culture secretary”, or can we afford one when the government can’t even catch criminals or ensure the conditions are optimised for us to have cheap energy with no political strings, protect our borders.
FOOTBALL – a sport that appears to be thriving at every level
That’s the problem tof – thriving. We can’t be having thriving in the UK. Only one solution, government involvement. Where there isn’t a problem introduce government and there soon will be. And what do problems require?
Solutions. Nice and tidy.
Bang on the money!
Yet more evidence that this is a ‘democratic’ socialist fascist government.
‘Italy was the first state, together with the Soviet Union, to organize [an explicit] policy that would lead the country to become a sports nation.’ In this regard, Mussolini’s plan began with the promotion of new soccer clubs and huge stadiums across Italy.’
‘When Giorgio Vaccaro, the FIGC president, met with Mussolini to officially inform him that Italy would host the second World Cup, the following dialogue reportedly occurred:
The Duce sounds exactly like Hancock……
Thanks to Dr Tom Jefferson and the other authors for doing this very important Cochrane review
A statement like there doesn’t appear to be any convincing evidence that masks make any difference to transmission. They may do, but the evidence is not present from trials at present is all the mask-pushers need: Masks may work! The precautionary principle dictates that they must be worn! In fact, even Chris Whitty, UK mask-pusher in chief of not that long ago, never claimed anything else. He always just said that masks may reduce transmission by …%.
Considering this, Dr Jefferson, no thanks for this interview. A more honest summary would be We don’t now what – if any – effect masks have on transmission. They might prevent it. Or enhance it. Or – depending on the situation – might both prevent it in some cases and enhance in some other cases. Or they might have no effect on it at all. And because we don’t know this, no rational argument for wearing or even mandating them can be made.
From the authors’ conclusions on page 3 of the full report
Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated
And the confidence intervals of masks effectiveness includes negative and positive efficacy as indicated in the transcript above.
An acknowledgement of uncertainty is all that the authors are doing and that acknowledgement strengthens the case against masks in my view, when compared with the un-evidenced assertions that masks work.
I’m specifically referring to the sentence from the interview I quoted. That’s exactly the completely official argument in support of masks: They may prevent transmissions. True believers are convinced they do. So-called scientists mandated them based on an appeal for ignorance which is a logical fallacy.
And my point is that it’s almost impossible to conduct an interview like this and not say something that could be taken out of context or twisted in some way. The confidence interval itself is mentioned in this interview albeit by Carl Heneghan
And that the review itself is the evaluation of the evidence and not a line from an interview about it.
Given the amazing job Tom Jefferson has done in destroying the case for masks, to say ‘no thanks for the interview’ is somewhat mean spirited in my view.
I’ve neither taken this out of context nor twisted it anyhow. In the answer to the third question, it’s stated that
The result means that regardless of what pathogen or what presenting symptom there is no evidence from high quality studies that either medical or surgical masks make any difference to transmission,
This reappears in the answer to the fourth question in weaker form as
there doesn’t appear to be any convincing evidence that masks make any difference to transmission. They may do, but the evidence is not present from trials at present.
And that’s, for all practical purposes, just Chris Witty’s Masks may reduce transmission. Plus a hint that future trials may well additionally prove that they do. That’s not helpful unless the agenda is mask marketing or even mask mandate marketing and a simple admission of ignorance (like the example I gave) had served the case against masks, if that’s supposed to be a case against masks, much better.
Don’t get me wrong, I am glad people are gathering scientific evidence to demonstrate the futility of masks.
However, it’s a terrible indictment of our society that scientific evidence is required in the first place to demonstrate something so spectacularly obvious.
If there was an advantage to covering our mouths in some way, I am quite certain that we would have evolved in that way, much like our eyes have a cover. Or our ears. But I’m pretty sure our mouths and noses are open for a very good reason.
But such are things now that if the government mandated that everyone had to block our anal passage with a cork while out and about, we’d be compelled to conduct a range of scientific studies to demonstrate that it was probably a really bad idea.
How many decades has the medical profession being using masks and only now they discover this.