As the General Election approaches, politicians appear to be increasingly adopting stances to appeal to the youngest strata of the electorate, in particular the sacred ‘first time voter’. There’s a general idea often batted around that the youth are particularly disaffected and disillusioned when it comes to politics with there being few objective and informative resources that they can access in order to make up their minds where they stand. The notion that politicians fail to connect with the youth of today is reflected in the voting turnout. In the 2010 General Election, 18-24 year-olds had the lowest voter turnout of any age group, at a mere 44% (despite the ‘Cleggmania’ that had seemingly possessed so many young people at the time). Labour have explicitly tried to appeal to young people through their promise to cut tuition fees to £6000 a year after the wave of demonstrations and sit-ins triggered by Clegg’s U-Turn on his pledge to abolish the fees during his 2010 election campaign. The Green Party’s manifesto states that they will abolish tuition fees altogether and certain burgeoning regional parties such as Yorkshire First have made the same proposal to try and obtain that much-needed tick in the box (an estimated 3 million more votes could be cast if all within the 18-24 age bracket were to vote).
However, it’s debatable whether this proposal will be enough to interest young people, in a recent survey as many as 65% said that they were not interested in politics or that they felt politics had little relevance to their lives. In a way, it’s easy to see where this line of thinking comes from: our ‘democracy’ is constructed as to ensure that if you are not a middle-aged, white male whose earnings are placed in the top tax bracket, it’s very difficult to get people to listen to you (unfortunately, despite increased diversity in the Commons, it is the figurehead of the rich white man which largely dominates). Because many who belong to this aforementioned stereotype also belong in the government, it’s easy to see why politicians are accused of being out of touch with the real world, considering many have come from the top-public schools, universities and FTSE 100 companies, it’s hard to imagine them empathising with the majority of students, apprentices and retail workers.
The tuition fee pledge could even be seen as something a little patronising: a policy just to ensure all bases are covered for each potential age group eligible to vote. Labour have made a huge song-and-dance about tuition fees, yet have been suspiciously silent regarding another of their electoral pledges: ensuring that each school student studies English and Maths to age 18. Despite its flaws (how many corridors have you heard Michael Gove decried in), one of the great things about the A-Level system is that it permits freedom to choose what you study and it’s difficult to imagine this policy being implemented without significantly impinging on this freedom. The disparity between hugely publicising what is likely to be an immensely popular policy and almost covering up what is likely to be very unpopular could lead to the assumption that politician’s treatment of the young is something engineered solely for electoral popularity, worlds apart from the compassion and solidarity that the Labour Party are supposed to represent.
I’m not criticising the Labour Party as an organization, I’m criticising their spin doctors – there’s a significant difference. I believe Ed Miliband to be a man who genuinely cares about Britain’s future, yet for me – as for many young people – the party press machines do nothing but isolate young people and push them even further from politics. Their constant jostling for party-political brownie points and the scaremongering that they resort to in order to stay in power, alongside the under-representation of women and ethnic minority groups within politics, that makes it clear that – unless electoral tactics are changed – politics will continue to be an old man’s game for quite some time yet.
Words by Beth Chaplow