Voting, right?

The airwaves are alight with alarm as influencers of opinion try to peddle an imaginary resurgence of nasty, xenophobic, right-wing ‘populism’. The language of broadcast media paints right-of-centre ideals - independence, self-determination, thrift, small-c-conservatism, decency, tolerance and sober patriotism – as being spawned from a hatred of some out-group or other. But the left-wing principles of authoritarian government, big state interference in the minutiae of everyday life and unsustainable profligacy in public spending are given a free pass as the desirable status quo.

Following round one of the French presidential elections, Macron is hailed as a ‘centrist’ while Marine Le Pen is vilified as being ‘far-right’ when in fact she actually represents a huge proportion of the electorate in mistrusting the ambitions and means of globalist socialism. If you want extreme politics you need look no further than the unbelievably naïve, schoolboy Marxist politics of the British left wing whose fantasies, as espoused by Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott, Farron, Lucas et al, are becoming more unhinged and intemperate with each passing day.

But, of course, the easy passing of the magic wand over all your problems is far more appealing than the dull, grey truth that your life is your business and it’s up to you to make something of it. Who wants to hear that it’s uphill all the way when there is an alternative narrative that suggests you can coast your way through life and let somebody else ensure your passage is unimpeded? Ask your children what they would prefer; sitting in rows, paying attention and putting in real effort to learn, or playing with the glittering toys of educational technology and supposedly absorbing knowledge without breaking a sweat.

We define adulthood as the point at which we accept responsibility. In the UK this is nominally at eighteen but the behaviour of many supposed adults gives the lie to that arbitrary designation; those calling for votes for sixteen-year olds, for instance. Because, they say, they will have to live with those decisions for the rest of their lives. Firstly, that is utterly ridiculous because the opportunity to change our government comes every five years; even if you’re only 13 this June you will have the opportunity to have your say at the next general election... if you can remember then what your current opinion is.

But, but, but, they say, at sixteen you can join the army, or get married. Yes you can, with the permission of your parents. But, they splutter, if you are considered responsible enough to carry a gun, or become a parent... Woah there, boy, in the forces you follow orders and who in their right mind would encourage breeding before you have anything to offer your child, before you have experienced anything of life? And besides, the oft-repeated advice ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’ didn’t spring from thin air. The argument that the vote of 16-year olds is as valid as 86-year olds could only possibly come from a 16-year old... or somebody who wants their uninformed mandate.

Those who want to milk the young for their consent haven’t really thought it through have they? Where would you be now if you had been forced to live your life according to your world view as a child? The simple fact of human longevity means that, barring some bizarre explosion in fertility rates, there will always be more ‘old’ people than there will be under-twenties. John Major whined about the tyranny of the majority; would he prefer the tyranny of the juvenile minority instead? Give young people the vote? You must think we were born yesterday...

The dithers of Os...

On deadline day they crashed the system for voter registration – so they say. Some saw conspiracy when this reported event was immediately followed by an extension of the deadline by 48 hours, putting registration and validation perilously close to the possibility of legal challenge. There has been, they say, a last minute surge in younger people registering to vote, which is expected to benefit the Remain war effort. But then Abraham Baldry wrote in the Independent that young people won’t vote anyway because – wait for it – the Conservatives have put them off politics. 

What bollocks. ‘The youth’ have been propagandised by the teaching and student unions all of their lives to believe the Tories are evil child molesters and rapacious slumlords and the only way to get them out is to vote. The reason young people don’t generally do so is that in their modern extended childhoods they have little interest beyond themselves. ‘Twas ever thus, except today there are many more distractions in the way of them growing up and taking responsibility. The biggest concern of generation snowflake seems to be their obsessive insistence that all of their ‘rights’ flow from membership of the EU; an impression the Tory machine is now happy to reinforce.

These will, of course, be the rights to self-identify at whim as whatever gender, race or perceived combination of impairments garners the most attention. Me, me, me has never been so accepted an orientation as it is now. Childish behaviour used to be frowned upon once the lofty status of ‘adult’ had been attained; now it is fawned upon. I don’t mean acting a bit daft from time to time; I’m referring to full-blown, slappable reversion to a childish insistence that the world be shaped to suit only you. Take George Osborne... no, really.

Last night, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, under questioning from Andrew Neil, responded like a petulant student being grilled about plagiarism. Somebody else had done his homework and Brillo wanted to get to the bottom of it. Where did the numbers come from? Why are you continuing to use discredited research? Why didn’t you show your working? You and Christine copied each other’s homework, didn’t you? In response, Osborne’s ‘debating technique’ seemed to consist of outright denial (“I never!”) deflection (“It wasn’t me!”) and repetition of worn tropes no matter how hackneyed.

I wouldn’t have been surprised had his argument been to insist it wasn’t fair and to repeat back Andrew Neil’s statements in a mocking, sing-song voice, or to demand “No, YOU explain it, fatty!” At one point the discussion concentrated on Cameron’s ‘renegotiation’ and the issue of migrant benefits. Despite only marginal and ineffective concessions on the entitlement of visitors to claim UK welfare cash, Osborne insisted over and over again on sticking to the transparently fraudulent claims of his boss. If the ‘yoof’ have learned one thing it is that adults eventually tire of trying to engage with them and move on.

I think Andrew Neil missed a trick. The hot issue in this debate is the lack of control the UK has within Europe to control who comes here and how they are treated. The question shouldn’t be about how long EU citizens have to be in the UK before they can claim benefits, but why we are compelled to pay British taxpayers money to people of other nationalities in the first place. Low paid migrant workers will never make any financial contribution to Britain’s economy (currently we need a tax take of £7,500 a head just to balance the books) so subsidising them seems to be madness. It’s not about the economy, stupid!

Of course I know how the economy works!

You can talk about reciprocity all you like but the idea that you can go anywhere in the EU and live off benefits paid for by their citizens is a crock. It could only possibly find acceptance if there really was a single country called Europe and nobody in their right mind wants that. (Do they?) That gigantic, controlling edifice is exactly the sort of thing you end up with when you let children demand ever greater rights, by law, to never to have to face up to reality. It’s time Osborne was made to face the reality that haunts so many citizens of the EU. Joblessness. 

Shut that door!

Although they have the same Greek root, polis, politics isn't about policy, as much as it pretends to be; it’s all about the wielding of power. In our flimsy facsimile of democracy that power derives from a mandate; it requires the garnering of votes via the grubby courting of popularity and the current popular pomme de terre chaud is single sex marriage.

Nobody knows how many gay people there are. Nobody. In the 1970s the gay rights movement distorted what Kinsey had said in his 1948 study and promulgated a belief that 10% of the population was gay. I was at university in the seventies and remember it well as, to much giggling (we were, after all, only kids) we tried to decide who amongst our peers it might be.

Of course, at the time we were all familiar with such comic figures as John Inman, Duncan Norvelle and Larry Grayson. As hugely camp as they were, they were nevertheless accepted without question as people first and poofs an unimportant second. Before gay militancy nobody was remotely interested in what homosexuals thought or what they did ‘in the privacy of their own homes’. Nobody really batted an eyelid until Stonewall came along and started shoving it down our throats.

Of course, since those days the closet door has been flung wide and our streets throng with openly gay people. Except they don’t. Nobody knows, but a recent ONS Survey reports - like the cost of national infrastructure - a figure ten times at odds with the original estimate. So, if only 1% identify as homosexual why has the government risked a major split over creating recognition for a union which affects so few, when there are pressing matters which affect every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom?

One word; Politics. However this un-promised, un-mandated and (by-numbers) indifferent vote has come about it is causing upset across the political classes. In the wider populace most people really, seriously couldn’t give a toss. We’d like a job, say, or a pension, or maybe a say in who makes our laws, but gay marriage? Seriously?

It is, by all objective measures a minority issue and in a ‘democracy’, minorities get short thrift. Minorities can of course become majorities (check out the Muslim population by 2050) or they can enlist the support of others. In this case, ‘the young’. Young people are interested in matters of relationships; of course they are. And why not? I must have spent the majority of my free time at university trying to get laid; I would be very sad if today’s students were not just the same.

And this brings me to Twitter Land where 140 characters can cleave nations asunder in moments; where an ill-chosen word or a hastily penned retort can cause outrage and outpourings of vitriol far in excess of its intent. And yesterday’s spat? I said I believed that the vote of young people was unreliable because the young are largely only interested in themselves. What a bad man I am, for which I apologise. What I thought was a reasonably level-headed conversation with Gareth was intruded upon by Reece, who had these choice words for me:

Over a number of tweets he called me a pathetic, naïve, patronising, incompetent, tit. He decided to read into my original words that I believed all young people were stupid. And he even endowed me with having the ridiculous notion that intelligence was a function of age. It’s amazing what you can do with words when, as he rightly acknowledges, you lack experience.

So, Reece, let’s look at all that, shall we? We are all stupid. At least we are all born that way. Unless somebody is going to tell me that knowledge is hereditary, everything we know has to be crammed in somehow. Parents, schools, observation, mishaps, happy serendipity… life. We learn by living, ergo, the longer we live the more we have the opportunity to learn. Some young people are of course geniuses and many older people are morons – but generally they always were morons. It is almost never the case that intelligent young people get less wise with age. (Of course, you are welcome to call me a moron, too, if that helps.)

The most important experiential advantage an older person has over the young is that he has already been where they now stand and he knows what’s around the corner.  The reason I believe the young vote is unreliable is because most people have different priorities as they age. When you’re young – and even more so these days – the world revolves only around you. As you mature you realise that you need jobs and freedoms to allow you to develop and those things become even more important when you have other people dependent on you.

The gay marriage issue is not really a matter for politicians to decide and certainly not now. It should have been debated properly, researched, agreed and passed as ‘any other business’. But politics isn’t about policy, is it? Politics is about mobilising support to win power and every vote counts. Younger people have been roped in to clamour for this non-issue because they will vote for things that interest them now; they haven’t yet seen their future. We have.

Wilson did it, Blair did it. The youth vote can tip the balance of power. But every time it has done so it has tipped in favour of a world order that just doesn’t work. The splits caused by the row over gay marriage may be enough to return Labour to office. If that happens, we will remain prey to the European juggernaut. And this was why I said and still believe that the youth vote, while possibly critical, is unreliable and easily swayed.

Everard never had all this trouble with young boys!

So, let’s get Tuesday’s motion out of the way and please, for pity’s sake, let’s hear no more about it. Age prejudice goes both ways, but in the case of older people it is at least an informed prejudice. Sometimes though - and I believe now is one of those times - we should be standing together to fight much bigger issues than who does what with whose ring. It’s time to fight together to shut that door on Europe.