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Friday Apr 13, 2007
Vote youth
The forthcoming local elections next month will be the first since the law was changed to allow 18 year-olds to stand.
As has been mentioned here before, we have crazily inconsistent minimum age laws in this country (at 16 you can get married but can't watch porn or vote), but this reform is certainly progress.
Apparently there are 18-21 year-old candidates standing for election in Manchester, Stratford upon Avon, Waveney, Poole, Barrow, Southampton, Oldham, Lancaster, West Oxfordshire, Runnymede, Flyde, Harlow, Bournemouth.
Among the youngest is Sarah Wilson in Poole who, judging by the level of debate in the comments to a story about the elections in her local paper, will have her work cut out.
Now, how about reducing the minimum voting age to 16?
Posted by Tom Green ( 11:12 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
"What on earth can a 18 year old kid contribute to running a Council. It is really stupid for any Party to put up someone of that age. Just look at what the Liberals did to Bournemouth - They must be really short of candidates."
Proof that wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age.
Posted by 10.0.0.8 on April 18, 2007 at 01:33 PM GMT+00:00 #