Hitting 18, Fags, Booze, Uni… Politics?
An interesting thing happened to me a few months ago. I received a letter from Leeds City Council informing me that I must register myself to vote in the near future. And, I, of course, ignored the letter and went on Myspace. A few hours later, I found myself thinking. Voting most certainly could not apply to someone so young, so politically unaware, whose closest experience of recession and political crisis was the film Billy Elliot, could it?
The problem is that I am part of the next voting generation, and most of us, myself included, have absolutely no idea how this country is run, the ins and outs of the economy, of political policy. It’s not cool to fret about the run on the pound, or Gordon Brown’s popularity, and as such, most of us veer to the territory of the “normal” – reality TV, soaps, music – whatever it is we use as our social standpoints. And there is the issue that once we hit 18, we make up a large proportion of any given political party’s demographic, no matter how uninformed we are. We are in no way equipped to make a decision which many believe is pointless anyway – how much could one vote matter? – and as such, we choose to ignore it, save for the occasional article in the Metro between Nemi, the horoscopes and Guilty Pleasures, which are much easier to digest and discuss.
I guess I could say my viewpoint on politics was as follows:
Conservatives: Ooh, they’re the ones that ruined the economy in the 80s, aren’t they, with that Thatcher woman?
Labour: Tony Blair was alright, I guess, better than those Tory lot. Gordon Brown looks like a chimp.
Lib Dem: Their appeal is they’re not Labour or Tory, right?
Everyone else: The Green Party? Are they all veggie tree huggers? Wtf?
So who would I have voted for? Well, probably Labour as everyone else is doing it. Not that I really cared anyway.
Pre-newspaper-reading-wtfispolitics Meg was probably not going to be of any use in this real world we live in these days. The credit crunch, inflation, boom-and-bust, what’s an exchequer? All just useless buzzwords in an already too hard to understand area. I say this, and most adults don’t really have an active interest in politics either, unless they’re particularly suffering due to current policies, or they are my father (who has an opinion about EVERYTHING).
So what can be done?
We have a mandatory obligation to attend lessons in school on religion, so why not politics too? It’s just as big an issue, and a grossly ignored one at that. Of course, any teaching method incorporated under government regulation will contain bias, so perhaps not. Brainwashing is definitely not the answer.
Adverts aimed at teenagers regarding politics? Contrary to popular belief, not all under 18s take advertisement content as gospel, and it would most likely get ignored, unless it contained breasts, a good tune, or both. Plus we’re all too busy stabbing each other to notice adverts anyway.
Truth is, I don’t know. It’s a matter of personal taste, but I believe we should equip ourselves with knowledge to help us make an informed choice about our future. The party in power will inadvertantly affect our lives in a matter of time, when we realise how badly constructed certain areas of finance are or when we frown in disgust at yet another incident which the government lets slip (Baby P, anyone?) Instead of sitting around doing nothing, why don’t we at least find out more about things which bug us?
Politicians will always lie, we’ve just got to find ones that don’t lie as badly as the rest.
So there we have it, this is the birth of a 17 year old girl’s interest in an uncool subject. Another one.
