Young at heart and mind

Youth is wasted on the young, quipped Oscar Wilde, though my rejoinder is that experience is wasted on the old.  When I was 16, I thought it was a grave injustice that people of my age were not allowed to vote. At that age, we could (then) legally leave school, smoke, play the lottery, join the army or even get married with the permission of the parents, though in the latter case we would be denied the wedding punch.  Of course, if a couple eloped to Gretna Green, they had no need for parental approval but Scottish laws and liberties are subtly different to those 'south of the border'.
In the recent referendum on whether Scotland was to remain part of the UK or not, the franchise was extended to 16- and 17-year olds in a desperate bid by the Nationalists to try and win the vote, thinking the younger age group would be more naive and idealistic and easier to hoodwink - a hypothesis proven correct by a majority of the 16-25 age group voting for separation.  With the experiment deemed successful, the SNP administration at the Holyrood Assembly pushed ahead with ensuring that all future elections to the Scottish autonomous parliament would be open to all those aged 16 and above.  It was quite a Machiavellian ploy as it is part of the SNP's calculated attempt to create a separate political culture from the rest of the UK, yet none of the main parties could bring themselves to vote against it for fear of being saddled with the charge that they are undemocratic and unfriendly to young people.
Yesterday, seeking to outflank the SNP, the national Labour Party announced they would give the vote to all those aged 16 and above throughout the UK, to avoid the anomaly that a, say, 17-year old could vote in a Scottish election but not in a nationwide one.  It will be in the Labour manifesto.  It is wrong.
Since I was a callow youth, I have moderated my opinions.  The greatest threat to western democracy is not a revanchist Russia, a rising China or even climate change (at least in the short-term).  No, the biggest danger is voter apathy - the freedom won in earlier generations being casually disregarded, allowing less scrupulous elites to claw back the power that their forebear altruistically dispensed.  I should say, altruism mixed with hard-headed politics, in trying to maintain social order and win a new constituency to the party that extneded the franchise.  Voter apathy is starkest among the 18-25 year group and the closer that you come to the liminal age of 18, the greater that is.  After the first flush of being able to vote, the interest and engagement of 16- and 17-year olds will tail off drastically.  So, whereas real numbers of voters will increase slightly, the percentage of the electorate will decline.
It may be patronising to say that teenagers at school are impressionable without opinions fully formed, yet is true as well.  Neither do they have an investment in society - though many twentysomethings (even thirtysomethings) still live at home with their parents, almost all 16- and 17-year olds do (or with a guardian).  They won't pay rent and many won't pay taxes through prioritising study over part-time jobs.  A few prodigies may understand the intricacies of the NHS and defence policies of each party but they were always going to vote at the next election after turning 18 anyway.
And the danger is that some truly unsavourable parties may get elected.  At the 1997 mock General Election at school, with a winner takes all, the Monster Raving Looney Party won the vote (with the Liberal Democrats second).  Admirable comedy outfit that they are, even its members would think twice about wielding power in Westminster.  When Euan (son of Tony) Blair was at school - as Head Boy - the 2001 mock General Election at his faculty gave UKIP the top billing.  With Nigel Farage recently blaming 'open-door' immigration for being delayed on the M4 but this being apparent for ages, those who do vote for them haven't thought through the consequences.
Young people on the whole tend to be more left-wing than the general population at large (the cliche being that as they age and take on more responsibilities and investments they become more right-wing) and this may have also played a part in the Labour Party's policy process.  But it would also be irrevocable.  Better to achieve a fairer electoral system by making the House of Lords fully democratic (keep the title of Lords - 'senators' are so common elsewhere, we should want to be distinctive) and adopting varying systems of proportionately for the upper and lower Houses.  Certainly the strength of the first-past-the-post argument of avoiding hung parliaments and providing strong single-party governance is broken beyond repair, with 2015 set to be even more messy than 2010.  But this scheme for 16- and 17-year olds given the vote, despite the policking involved is bad politics and will make Westminster less, not more, accountable.