Labour to give 16-year-olds the vote

Arriving in Manchester, before Labour conference, Ed Miliband told young people of his vision for a Labour Britain: He believes 16-year-old should have get vote.

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CyberPunk65
i-thorts' i-Politics September 30th 2012

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If 16- to 18-year-olds could vote, George Osborne might have thought twice about getting rid of EMA (Educational Maintenance Allowance) - it would have hit Tories at ballot box.

Ed Milliband MP speaking at the Labour Party conference. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Miliband has a project to "rebuild Britain" by involving young people more in politics. He wants young people to have a voice.

Miliband concedes that the coalition’s welfare system changers are acceptable to Labour, but lacked compassion towards the disabled.

Miliband admits agreeing with some of the government’s policies - but not most of them.

He can’t "wave a magic wand" though.

"We can’t have people going to food banks while millionaires have been given £40,000 tax cuts." Miliband argues, "It’s not right."

Age of Concern

Age of
Consent?

This morning my daughter of almost sixteen dropped a bomb on me. She said she’d ‘Googled it’ and they were thinking of dropping the age of having sex to 14.

I thought I must be hearing things. So I ‘Googled it’ and discovered what she’d read.

On February 16th of this year (2012) the Telegraph ran this headline:

Drop Age Of Consent To 14, Says Academic
    -Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent, Telegraph Newspapers
    -16 February 2007.

She goes on to state what this academic report suggests dropping the age of consent to 14 with restrictions so that the 40% of 15-year-olds who admit to having had sex (not oral sex but full intercourse) would not be breaking the law. This is a good but radical article.

I look at my daughter -who is just over three months away from her sweet sixteenth- and wonder how I’d feel for her to be having sex now (legally), and it sends me cold. This is such an alien concept to my usually-rational parental mind that it screams out “NO!!!” in disgust.

It seems so long since I was a horny teenager, that I’ve buried those emotional realities by my parental concerns. As a dad I’m applaud by the thought of my teenage daughter being sexually active...

We’ve done the talks about safe sex and contraception -so I’m aware of what is expected of parents today.

The problem is, as a realist, I ‘know’ that the chances of her staying ‘virginal’ are almost none existent. She will meet someone that she wants to ‘sleep with’, (possibly) marry, and (eventually) have kids of her own to worry about. All of that above doesn’t make the any easier to accept. I suppose it’s just hard for a dad to let his little girl grow-up into a young woman.

Having said that, I would urge any parent to read the Telegraph’s article; it’s an eye-opener and a reality check for any mum or dad.

I love both my daughters and my son, and I know they’ll have to go through these concerns themselves what their time comes.

I just wonder if lowering the age of concern will make children more responsible than they currently aren’t (or than we were at their ages).
I seriously doubt it!