Votes at 16 feels like window dressing for a Government that made a big deal of wanting to 'deliver change', has spent much of their first year consolidating the status quo and is now scrambling around for concrete 'changes' that they can point to.

More effective reforms could be: electoral system reform; properly regulating campaign finance; none of the above voting option; further democratisation of internal party politics; or considering changes to how we make policy decisions in the UK.

And B) the issue with significant levels of political apathy is not the UK’s current extent of suffrage but perhaps more fundamental and wider questions around the voting options that are available to voters and the wider prism that these options sit inside.

There is also the issue that this is simply aiming at the wrong target.

A) there are probably better means to engage 16/17 year olds politically than simply voting;

Back in July 2024, we wrote a blog on the move to lower the voting age.

Starmer's argument that these people work and pay taxes and therefore should vote, is not a strong enough reason to lower the age - there are plenty people in the UK who can do this but cant vote.

mores.blog/2024/07/04/v...

and subsequently very impactful on the lives of citizens, are able to speak publicly and transparently about the very policies that impact all facets of a citizens live.

Citizens need this exposure to civil servants - without this, this will simply allow misinformation around policy development.

We need to rethink what democracy looks like in the UK's political and economic system, to put citizens at the heart of these systems, to promote engagement and citizen-centric policy.

Perhaps this requires an entire rethink of the UK's Westminster Model.

Without this, we will simply compound the inherent short termism in the UK's political and economic system and continue to disenchant voters, who may eventually turn against some of the underlying principles of democracy.

While voters and parties will differ massively on what reform of the UK's political and economic system ought to encapsulate, we need to at least begin with a recognition that the current system needs reform.

put the 'put the interests of the nation above those of their own party just about always or most of the time'. Further to this sense of apathy, following the 2024 GE, only 19% 'think the system of governing Britain needs little or no improvement'.

This year's survey reconfirms a feeling that the UK system does not serve the interests of citizens: 26% are 'struggling on their current income'; 59% are 'dissatisfied with the health service'; 53% are dissatisfied with social care.

Meanwhile, on democracy, only 12% trust politicians to..

The same issue is at hand in the Government's plans to pursue airport expansion and the plethora of real terms in the Spending Review.

Without a reckoning with what they want their underlying philosophy to be, the Government will just continue to make these mistakes.

For Mores, the rationale for assisted dying is quite intuitive: we trust people to be the authors of their life, to choose the jobs and relationships they pursue - the same should stand for their death.

We should not lose sight of this underlying moral argument in the debate around the Bill.

This is definitely interesting following this post from Peter Walker regarding Reform's actions in their newly acquired councils.

Definitely raises a few questions about whether representative democracy and strong party politics risks undermining localism in devolution

bsky.app/profile/pete...