The Student Room Group

Voting at 16?

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Original post by MatureStudent37
Purely a floating voter.

All I know is that Labour governments tend to leave the U.K. in a bad shape.

On what basis, the 1997-2010 Blair / Brown government?
Original post by SHallowvale
On what basis, the 1997-2010 Blair / Brown government?

From personal experience I’d have to say Afghanistan and Iraq. Not so much to actions, more the delivery. Getting shot out when you the body armour you’re issued with consists of a ballistic plate that sits only over your heart as well has having to ride vehicles who’s ballistic protection could be overcome by a ballpoint pen was a major concern.

I was however talking of Blair’s amazing economic policy that was a continuation of Majors. A massive cash influx into the NHS that created a huge increase in management and not nursing staff. A reduction in our manufacturing base. (Ironically Thatcher got the blame for that but manufacturing output has increased year on year since WW2 until Blair comes into power.)

Then there as the selling off Britain’s gold reserves when gold was at a record low price.

Truly though, it was this letter that Labour left for the conservatives that highlight it best.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8688470.stm
I'm in favour both because people at 16 can be in employment and also to encourage participation in the political process. It is also happening in parts of the UK, so would be consistent if it applied to all elections in the UK.

I'm not in favour of some of the other restrictions for 16 and 17 year olds being lifted, especially marriage, which I feel should be a minimum age of 18 regardless to reduce numbers of forced marriages.
Original post by username5668082
I'm in favour both because people at 16 can be in employment and also to encourage participation in the political process. It is also happening in parts of the UK, so would be consistent if it applied to all elections in the UK.

I'm not in favour of some of the other restrictions for 16 and 17 year olds being lifted, especially marriage, which I feel should be a minimum age of 18 regardless to reduce numbers of forced marriages.

Why one and not the other?

Do you not think it’s a bit hypocritical to say you can engage in suffrage, but not drink, watch adult films, sit on a jury or go to war?
Original post by MatureStudent37

Left wing politics seem great. They allow you to spend other people’s money and then borrow money off the magic money tree.


This is the sort of sound bite you'd expect from a Conservative MP or activist.

It is also a strange perspective that is at odds with factual reality as it depicts a lack of fiscal restraint as a left wing phenomena. In doing so, it ignores that our current Conservative government has run a government deficit for 11 years straight. Attributing the blame to Brown's Labour worked in 2012 but has not been justifiable for several years.

Yet, for all that spending, our capital investment and R&D spending lags behind most G7 and OECD countries. Instead we see money squandered freely without appropriate planning or cost-benefit analysis. To name a few non-covid examples: the multi-billion pound overspend on HS2 despite the economic benefits being highly questionable, the expensive yet disastrous probation system reforms that had to be reversed, the multi-billion pound cost of uninstalling Huawei technology from our 5G network, the supposed market reforms of the NHS that delivered inefficiency and bureaucracy which the government are considering reversing.

Future analysis of covid-related procurement contracts will likely reveal incompetence, if not outright corruption. Which may explain why the government is now spending a lot of taxpayers' money on lawyers to prevent attempts at scrutiny.

To touch on the broader economy, The Conservatives have overseen a period of productivity and wage stagnation. This, combined with their lack of fiscal restraint, have left us poorly prepared for a normal economic downturn, let alone the economic shock we are now experiencing.

If you are genuinely concerned about how your tax revenue is spent, your ire should be directed towards the current government rather than fixating on events of more than a decade ago.

Sadly it is all too common for people today to get their opinions from Tweets or Facebook, which why they so uncritically fall for these simple sound bites.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by Economixxx
This is the sort of sound bite you'd expect from a Conservative MP or activist.

It is also a strange perspective that is at odds with factual reality as it depicts a lack of fiscal restraint as a left wing phenomena. In doing so, it ignores that our current Conservative government has run a government deficit for 11 years straight. Attributing the blame to Brown's Labour worked in 2012 but has not been justifiable for several years.

Yet, for all that spending, our capital investment and R&D spending lags behind most G7 and OECD countries. Instead we see money squandered freely without appropriate planning or cost-benefit analysis. To name a few non-covid examples: the multi-billion pound overspend on HS2 despite the economic benefits being highly questionable, the expensive yet disastrous probation system reforms that had to be reversed, the multi-billion pound cost of uninstalling Huawei technology from our 5G network, the supposed market reforms of the NHS that delivered inefficiency and bureaucracy which the government are considering reversing.

Future analysis of covid-related procurement contracts will likely reveal incompetence, if not outright corruption. Which may explain why the government is now spending a lot of taxpayers' money on lawyers to prevent attempts at scrutiny.

To touch on the broader economy, The Conservatives have overseen a period of productivity and wage stagnation. This, combined with their lack of fiscal restraint, have left us poorly prepared for a normal economic downturn, let alone the economic shock we are now experiencing.

If you are genuinely concerned about how your tax revenue is spent, your ire should be directed towards the current government rather than fixating on events of more than a decade ago.

Sadly it is all too common for people today to get their opinions from Tweets or Facebook, which why they so uncritically fall for these simple sound bites.


sadly, not an activist .

Future analysis of Covid related procurement ‘WILL’ find ineffective purchasing. It’s the joys of urgent purchasing requirement.

UORs (urgent operational Requirements) for the military for , weren’t best value for money. But when you need equipment quickly.

Please do feel free to see what happens when you go for value for money in an emergency.

EU vaccination and PPE procurement systems are two that spring to mind.
Reply 46
Original post by MatureStudent37
Purely a floating voter.

All I know is that Labour governments tend to leave the U.K. in a bad shape.

By your own metric (total debt) the Tories have the UK in a far worse shape than Labour ever did.

A 'floating' voter that always votes Tory and spends every post on here waxing lyrical about them.
Reply 47
Original post by MatureStudent37
sadly, not an activist .

Future analysis of Covid related procurement ‘WILL’ find ineffective purchasing. It’s the joys of urgent purchasing requirement.

UORs (urgent operational Requirements) for the military for , weren’t best value for money. But when you need equipment quickly.

Please do feel free to see what happens when you go for value for money in an emergency.

EU vaccination and PPE procurement systems are two that spring to mind.

Ah, TSR's 'floating voter' shielding the Tories from any blame for anything...again.
Original post by DSilva
By your own metric (total debt) the Tories have the UK in a far worse shape than Labour ever did.

A 'floating' voter that always votes Tory and spends every post on here waxing lyrical about them.

Total debts not my measure.

Deficit is.

Labour left us with a huge problem post financial crash.

Of course, since the last Labour givernemnt we’ve had to
Original post by DSilva
Ah, TSR's 'floating voter' shielding the Tories from any blame for anything...again.

Not at all.

The EU tried the value for money approach.

They got a delayed vaccine roll out.

Remember the EU PPE purchasing scheme?
Reply 50
Original post by MatureStudent37
Total debts not my measure.

Deficit is.

Labour left us with a huge problem post financial crash.

Of course, since the last Labour givernemnt we’ve had to


Original post by MatureStudent37
Not at all.

The EU tried the value for money approach.

They got a delayed vaccine roll out.

Remember the EU PPE purchasing scheme?

The last Labour government ran several surpluses. In ten years the Tories haven't managed one.

Again, your fundamental position seems to be that everything good that happens is attributable to the Tories and everything bad has nothing to do with them.

And again, like with Trump, when someone criticises the Tories you deflect to talk about the EU.

You're not a floating voter, stop pretending you are.
Original post by DSilva
The last Labour government ran several surpluses. In ten years the Tories haven't managed one.

Again, your fundamental position seems to be that everything good that happens is attributable to the Tories and everything bad has nothing to do with them.

And again, like with Trump, when someone criticises the Tories you deflect to talk about the EU.

You're not a floating voter, stop pretending you are.

All surpluses were based on the previous governments fiscal polices though.

You may not remember the news headline.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7732661/Labours-warning-to-new-Government-theres-no-money-left.html
Reply 52
Original post by MatureStudent37
All surpluses were based on the previous governments fiscal polices though.

You may not remember the news headline.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7732661/Labours-warning-to-new-Government-theres-no-money-left.html

Right, so when a Tory govt does something well its due to the Tories but when a Labour govt does well it's also due to the Tories...
Original post by Economixxx
This is the sort of sound bite you'd expect from a Conservative MP or activist.

It's a shame how well it sticks. I recall during the 2017 election we heard nothing but "magic money tree" sound bites from the Conservatives, but the moment they lost their majority they magically spun up £1bn to bribe the DUP with.
Original post by MatureStudent37
Total debts not my measure.

Deficit is.

Labour left us with a huge problem post financial crash.

The deficit we'll see post Covid will far exceed what we saw post financial crisis. If the Conservatives lose the next election, should we start saying "Right wing politics seem great. They allow you to spend other people’s money and then borrow money off the magic money tree."?
Original post by SHallowvale
The deficit we'll see post Covid will far exceed what we saw post financial crisis. If the Conservatives lose the next election, should we start saying "Right wing politics seem great. They allow you to spend other people’s money and then borrow money off the magic money tree."?

There’s deficits from giving away feee money in order to buy votes.

And there’s deficits from having to negotiate through economic challenges outside of your control.
Original post by MatureStudent37
There’s deficits from giving away feee money in order to buy votes.

And there’s deficits from having to negotiate through economic challenges outside of your control.

Sorry, are you saying that the 2008-2010 deficits were because the Labour government were trying to buy votes?
Original post by SHallowvale
Sorry, are you saying that the 2008-2010 deficits were because the Labour government were trying to buy votes?

No. I’m saying the surpluses Labour ran and then gave away were to buy bites. Just as in the Libdems attempts to make university tuition free was buying votes.

Labours 2008- 2010 deficit was trying to prop up a financial crisis that was allowed to happen because somebody decided to say that their bank deregulation’s had resulted in no more boom or bust.

Not Labours fault entirely, but we should’ve been in a stronger position to begin with. That’s where that deficit came from. The deregulation that allowed it to happen was ramped up under a TCBs government.
Original post by MatureStudent37
Labours 2008- 2010 deficit was trying to prop up a financial crisis that was allowed to happen because somebody decided to say that their bank deregulation’s had resulted in no more boom or bust.

Not Labours fault entirely, but we should’ve been in a stronger position to begin with. That’s where that deficit came from. The deregulation that allowed it to happen was ramped up under a TCBs government.

Right, so to return to my question, if the Conservatives lose the next election, should we start saying "Right wing politics seem great. They allow you to spend other people’s money and then borrow money off the magic money tree." because of the post-Covid deficits we'll see?
Original post by SHallowvale
Right, so to return to my question, if the Conservatives lose the next election, should we start saying "Right wing politics seem great. They allow you to spend other people’s money and then borrow money off the magic money tree." because of the post-Covid deficits we'll see?

I show you the conservatives will lose the next election. We’ve had a major kick in the balls with Covid and people will feel they need a change and bite somebody else in.

However, conservatives seem to be riding high in the polls. Libdems didn’t seem to recover from their ‘vote for us and we’ll go against the result of the largest turnout for any vote this country’s ever had .’ The SNP will do what the SNP do. Labours still not got their act together.

I don’t doubt we’ll be seeing a deficit post Covid, but I think we’ll be seeing quite a quick return. Who’s in power we’ll have to wait and see.

As a general rule though. As long as no bat sh*t crazies get voted in, they’ll all be fighting over the middle ground so whoever is on power won’t matter too much.

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