Giving Kids The Vote
I may not have seen or googled every article reporting news that 16 and 17 year olds can vote. But all of the headlines that I have seen simply referred to the age of these newly enfranchised people, rather than for instance “Children Can Vote” or “Kids Given The Vote”. While I am not that concerned with bias in the media, only biased people get to write for the mainstream media, my alternative headline is perhaps more punchy and noteworthy as far as what the government has just pushed ahead with. Indeed, it is perhaps bad enough that clueless, depressed, drug addicted, alcoholic, or just plain apathetic adults can vote. Bringing in children who yet have passed their GSCE’s or have yet to take their A levels seems to be madness. Well, it is madness until you take into account the fact that this section of the non-adult community tend to be more left wing / Labour than the adult population. So therefore, as well as gerrymandering the population with mass immigration (admittedly both Labour and Conservative), we have direct electoral fraud in allowing those with acne access to the ballot box. Indeed, on this point it would be interesting to conduct a poll amongst 16 and 17 year olds to ask them how many know what a ballot box is? Or who the last five Prime Ministers were? But is funny how such a profound change in our democracy can be waved through – it favours the left. In contrast, if there was a proposal to ensure that only people born in this country could vote, or that the voting age was raised to 21, it would not stand a chance with our left leaning judiciary or of course Parliament.
What’s next? Give everyone the right to vote as soon as they are born? Just a fingerprint to vote Labour, or a thumb print to vote Conservative?
The Afghan Data Leak
There are not too many pleasant things that come up if you search Afghanistan or Afghan. In fact, the best thing is probably Afghan Hound. Alas, in the wake of this week’s news this state of affairs is likely to remain unchanged. Indeed, state of affairs covers it quite nicely. One of the problems we have had in this country, even through the former glory era, is a disconnect between the interests of the state, and the people. There is also the issue of whether the state is representing the interests of the people, or its own (different) interests. All of this has been illustrated by the Afghan data leak. To be fair, the identities of military officials and operatives did and do have to be protected, and those Afghans who helped the British in Afghanistan. But the problem here is whether the British people really wanted to be involved in Afghanistan in the first place, and whether they believe that as a result of this thousands of Afghanis have the right to settle here. At a guess, the answer would be no on both counts. There is also the wider question that most of the conflicts that this country has had to get involved with come from places who were former colonies and who in no uncertain terms told European powers to leave.
But specifically as far as the Afghan debacle is concerned, it is conventional wisdom that injunctions or super-injunctions are only a temporary fix. It is normally best to face the music as and when the issue concerned arises. Otherwise the impression left is of a country which is only selectively democratic, with selective press freedom, or indeed, freedom on speech. One wonders how long the big super-injunctions that may be running at the moment will last, and what the consequence of them collapsing might be?
Coldplay Wins Again
We are 25 years on from “rock” band Coldplay’s debut hit “Yellow”. Even though one could say the lead singer Chris Martin looked ok, and the song was decent, few would have anticipated that 25 years later the group would be a world-wide phenomenon selling more than 100 million albums. Not only this, the band has been a massive touring hit, with people apparently loving their stadium filling offering.
Indeed, Coldplay prevailed despite being too late for Britpop, and despite having to fight against the prevalence of dance music we have had in the first two decades of the 21st century. Chris Martin marrying Gyneth Paltrow of course helped, and making sure the music became not so much middle of the road, but perfectly designed to have as mass appeal as possible as well. But as with all stars and acts, sometimes luck is involved. The Beatles arrived in the US when it needed a distraction from the JFK assassination, and more recently Taylor Swift tapped into a demographic and attitude which combined the girl next door with the aspirations and attitudes of a generation. But there is always a luck factor, and in the case of Coldplay, the “kiss cam” moment is one that it should be able to dine out on until all its members are old and grey. That said, the couple caught out, very much in middle age and choosing a Coldplay concert to be all loved up, is quite revealing about the demographics of the group.
