"The decline in young people’s engagement in politics has been a common theme of late. As seen above, voter turnout has been low among young people relative to older age groups, but in the context of falling overall turnout at General Elections, the decline has been sharpest amongst voters aged 18-24:" (Elections: Turnout: 4)
Now now, 51.8% of us do vote. Are you in the remaining 48.2%?
Don’t you care what happens the course you study, the halls you live in and the societies you’re part of? What about the job you you work? The rate you're payed? The rules you follow? We all go through the motions like it's normal, like things aren't going to change, or they change for the worse, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. It's over our heads. To care, was never it our heads. Who even wants to vote? Why?
Manifestos are broken, trust is shattered and voting is deterred. Welcome to the 21st Century; welcome to the 2015 General Election. Yet you're here, reading this article. Maybe you'e a friend from school or a random kid I met on a night out but just take a moment to think. The mere fact you are at university (maybe), you have a job (maybe), or whoever you are, politics is so relevant to every move you make - every move you're allowed to make. You are invested in your future; what job you’ll have, what car you drive, what house you live in. Maybe you already work that job, drive that car… it’s all politics. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be, you are interested in politics. Say politics again, politics.
The biggest issue in young people's unwillingness to vote is that they simply don't want any of the options they are given. For Labour, as a 'left' party, they're basically touching dicks with the Conservatives over in that 'right' corner of the political spectrum. The political spectrum? Here! (Don't worry it takes you directly to the test and opens in a new tab!) The Spectrum is ssentially a graph with lots of dots that represent different things. I would advise everyone to complete this quiz, it's a few pages of "agree - disagree" questions but the result was quite surprising to myself, and my peers at the time. Here we go:
This image is actually the 'Political Spectrum'. Basically giving you the jist of what is where and what it means.
This next image shows where well known political figures were on the scale. If you consult the chart above, you will begin to grasp the idea more clearly and see who stood for what. For example, classic Margaret Thatcher is a typical conservative: Right wing, authoritarian.
When you finish the quiz, you will be shown where you are on the spectrum. This is me. As you can see when you glance back up to the top, me and Gandhi are best friends and he regularly pops around for a cuppa whilst we discuss what policy whatever government has fucked up this time. Now, before you scroll a bit further, be aware that most 18-25 year olds that take this quiz actually get around the same result as I did.
And, wahlaaaah. This may provide a reason as to why young people 'statistically don't vote'. All major parties in the UK reside in that top right corner, which young people do not identify with. After the growing support of the Greens in the past few months, we are able to see that the two party race is no longer the case. In the next General Election, maybe the Green's have a shot at winning?
As we can see from the charts above, I for one, am not happy with the state of the political system right now. Millions of others out there aren't either. With only 41% of 3.3 million young people, (that's 1,350,000), saying they will definitely vote on the 7th of May, theorists all over the UK are desperate to discuss why. I'm sure our politicians could provide just as much entertainment and incestuous scandals as Game Of Thrones does, or would we even know if they did? Britishfuture.org discuss many ideas as to why young people don't vote. One of their main ideas in that we simply don't trust politicians and think they do not understand issues we feel are the most relevant to us.
This graph is taken from Britishfuture's study How many young people will vote?
In the midst of a voting crisis, celebrity culture holds potential to impact the voting outcome severely. When comedian turned activist, Russell Brand, told young people not to vote, the whole nation pretended to be shocked. I laughed hysterically at what was probably the funniest thing he's ever said; and that's coming from a fan. Encouraging youths not to vote contradicts everything our generation wants; change. We may not support the major parties in the election, but there is literally more sense in voting for a minority that you believe in than to not vote at all. To waste your vote will only lead to a democracy even more unrepresentative than we currently have. For example, politicians focus largely on the elderly as they are more likely to vote, meaning parties want to secure those votes where as our age group are expected not to vote so issues concerning young people are pushed to the bottom of the pile. The Scottish referendum, with a whopping 84.5% turn out, is a prime example of the importance voting holds. With a mere 5% difference in the Yes and No votes, using your vote then would have literally made all the difference. The referendum created more of a revolutionary atmosphere than Russell Brand ever will with the use of his pretentious vocabulary and ideas that have no real platform to succeed. Although we may not like party politics, the only way to change the way our country works is by taking part in the system. The Scottish Referendum paved the way for change in Scotland, now we need to take inspiration from that and make room for change in England. Russell Brand is taking advantage of his own elite status to point fingers at other elitists, but for me, his real point in not revolution but it is not to let ourselves be walked on. Although this contradicts his theme, it seems the voting system, no matter how corrupt or out of touch it is, is the only platform for change for the foreseeable future.
This graph is taken from Britishfuture's study How many young people will vote?
In the midst of a voting crisis, celebrity culture holds potential to impact the voting outcome severely. When comedian turned activist, Russell Brand, told young people not to vote, the whole nation pretended to be shocked. I laughed hysterically at what was probably the funniest thing he's ever said; and that's coming from a fan. Encouraging youths not to vote contradicts everything our generation wants; change. We may not support the major parties in the election, but there is literally more sense in voting for a minority that you believe in than to not vote at all. To waste your vote will only lead to a democracy even more unrepresentative than we currently have. For example, politicians focus largely on the elderly as they are more likely to vote, meaning parties want to secure those votes where as our age group are expected not to vote so issues concerning young people are pushed to the bottom of the pile. The Scottish referendum, with a whopping 84.5% turn out, is a prime example of the importance voting holds. With a mere 5% difference in the Yes and No votes, using your vote then would have literally made all the difference. The referendum created more of a revolutionary atmosphere than Russell Brand ever will with the use of his pretentious vocabulary and ideas that have no real platform to succeed. Although we may not like party politics, the only way to change the way our country works is by taking part in the system. The Scottish Referendum paved the way for change in Scotland, now we need to take inspiration from that and make room for change in England. Russell Brand is taking advantage of his own elite status to point fingers at other elitists, but for me, his real point in not revolution but it is not to let ourselves be walked on. Although this contradicts his theme, it seems the voting system, no matter how corrupt or out of touch it is, is the only platform for change for the foreseeable future.
A revolution will never work when we don’t know what we want, but can only unite on what we don’t want. The 2010 general election was thought to be the most difficult to predict, this year the election is even more unpredictable; with polls showing the favourite coalition to be Labour-Scottish National Party-Green followed by a Conservative-UKIP coalition, no one can see where this one is going. There’s only one thing that we seem to be sure of; a hung parliament.
Take that quiz! It was a real eye opener for me, and hopefully it will help all you swing or first time voters see which parties really support the policies you believe in! However overly cliche and meaningless this may be now; vote. Vote for change.
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