Are older people today out of touch politically with younger generations?

Well said knickas63 ? and if you are new to GN, then welcome.

Perhaps there should be a maturity test like the driving test.

Repeated at pension age and every five years thereafter to see you still have mental capability?

I am - and thank you.

It may come to that one day GGMK2. Tests to see how grown up you are, for voting and driving and again after 55 to see how senile you've become!

Why don't we go back to the days when only property owning men could vote NfkD. After all there are still some in the country of the opinion that they are the only ones who are 'mature' enough to vote.

If we start segregating those we don't think are mature enough to vote it will make it very interesting. A lack of mental capacity, which comes more often with old age than with youth, does not stop someone from being able to vote so why should we think we (or rather you in this case) that we should be judging the maturity of the young. Having read some recent posts on this forum I have an 8 and 10 year old who show more maturity than some on here. If we go by a maturity/mental capacity test we may find some of our grandchildren of that age are given the vote while some of the members of GN are not. That would certainly not surprise me.

There has to be a line somewhere and at the moment it is set at 18 which seems a sensible age for the franchise considering that, as NfkD says, The UN says a child becomes an adult at 18.
It also seems a sensible age to set for other issues - perhaps marriage?
That is merely my opinion of course.

GracesGran we might be discussing the subject but we alone wouldn't be making any decision would we?

Jalima I was thinking along the same lines in my earlier post. But irrespective of any age change I do think political literacy should be compulsory in schools. I wish I had been taught at school how local and general elections work, as well as the purpose of local and central government. Yesterday I came across two great websites supporting political literacy.

Citizenship Foundation

Shout Out UK

I think, like RE (Comparative Religions) it could be a difficult subject to teach objectively.

As long as the curriculum is strict it could work. However, could it not be included in General Studies?

"A difficult subject to teach objectively"

My thought exactly!

It's not necessarily the school that does the teaching and political literacy in schools is the doesn't mean discussion about the political parties or policies. The award winning Shout Out UK course for schools is neutral and balanced.

What Does The Course Cover?

The Course covers an Introduction to British Politics (local and national, separation of powers, voting and debating), International Relations (Britain and the World, Media Literacy, Political Theory) and Employability & Politics (Oratory skills, debating and public speaking). In essence, the Course shows young people that politics is in everything we do in life – so it pays to be involved.

This video explains about the course

Shout Out UK Political Literacy Course

This link explains how the students and schools benefit

Benefits for students and schools

The students get online access to a platform where they can debate with each other about the parties and political issues. According to the website over 600,000 students are linked up in the UK and worldwide.

I'm all for it.

Jalima the course does fit in with the existing requirements of schools.

I went to a rather practical Sec Mod where the girls only did Human Biology (so we could be nurses), no other science, and Business Arithmetic ((so we could be good little secretaries). No maths, but as well as double entry book keeping we also learned about budgeting and other practical stuff around pensions and mortgages. Practical maths.

We all, boys and girls, did British Constitution. It covered the history of politics in Britain, touching on the odd war or two, voting rights, etc, the formation of Parliament and how it works, local government, taxation. All of it. The actual beliefs of the different parties was hardly touched on. That was for us to find out and decided for ourselves. I think there was an RSA exam at the end of it. My DC did nothing along these lines, but I think the DGC are getting citizenship lessons at junior school which hopefully is an introduction to something deeper at high school.

The Shout Out course looks good but is there a preparatory course about why central and local government works the way it does, the constraints and practicalities of running a country/county/parish? There seems to be a heavy influence towards debate, which is fine, but the groundwork needs to be there first.

On the subject of brainwashing. Young people were persuaded to vote in a certain way at the last election. They were promised that tuition fees would be scrapped and that their debts would be cancelled as soon as the election was over. Now they are being told it was only an aspiration. If that's not brainwashing, I don't know what is.

I would feel quite insulted if you suggested I had been 'brain washed' Wally. Our young people certainly thought long and hard about how they voted and I am sure they would feel the same about your insult to their intelligence and ability to reason.

It really is no argument just to insult those who disagreed with your view.

If that's not brainwashing, I don't know what is.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. You don't.

Well there is brain washing and there is influencing and then there is informing. Then of course there is misinforming and fake news. What is truth? I suppose all through life we have to make sense of what we see and hear and work out if it tallies with our own experience.
Some people I speak to have set ideas on something and you cannot argue with them. Like the moon landings, some people are convinced it was faked.

Anyone who did not see through the despicable ploy used by Jeremy Corbyn to mislead & use new young voters is indeed very naive .

So GG you knew all young voters did you.?and they thought long & hard , well I’m sure some did , but a lot were ‘Bought’
with a cynical unprovable lie.

Wally Jeremy Corbyn did not promise to cancel student debt. In fact, what he did say was already Labour policy.

Please read this to see what he did say and stop spreading rubbish.

Full Fact Jeremy Corbyn Student Debt

Channel 4 Jeremy Corbyn Student Debt

So GG you knew all young voters did you

Where did I say that Bridgeit. I see your need to attack me is approaching the stalking stage as you rarely comment except to do just that. Could you stop it please. Reasoned discussion is fine but this it becoming a little creepy.

GG, you put ‘our young people certainly thought long & hard’ which inspired my response
I do apologise if you find my comments akin to ‘ stalking ‘
I just try to point out to you that you yourself are inclined to stop the flow of a thread, which may not be intentional, but it does throw the thread ‘off piste’ whilst you continue to chastise posters in a less than amicable way. I would say at time your comments can come across as ‘ belittling ‘ only you know if that is your intention.

Nfk the first two weeks of the course covers

3. The Greek roots of the word ‘politics’ and the definition of democracy.
4. The concept of state, government and role of the monarchy.
5. Qualification and disqualification for voting in the UK.
6. Local and national political issues.
7. The frequency of national and local elections in the UK.
8. The constitution of British Parliament including the House of Lords and House of Commons.
9. The role of sovereignty and government in the UK.
10. Separation of powers in the UK e.g. legislative, executive and judiciary.
11. Voting for national and local government representatives.
12. Local ward, local UK constituency, local EU constituency boundaries.
13. Objective political publications.

All of this is covered in only four hours, so I can't see it being as in depth as you think it should be. The students can access other forms of information on the website on their own. Debating is the focus of weeks 5 and 6. I'm getting all this information from the website and course information. I don't have any personal experience of Shout Out. I think the course covers the basics and probably more than the average man on the street knows.

Citizenship is taught in schools from KS1 and there is a government programme, but it is optional. I can't imagine a school not doing anything at all though, because good citizenship was introduced in schools years ago now. Primary school children are taught about basic democracy in terms of things like fairness in decision making. I've seen some of the lessons on TV and the teachers use group work to give the children problem solving scenarios. It's kept very simple. One exercise was about how some treats should be divided up when there isn't enough for everyone to have the best treat. It was very interesting to see how the children talked about what they thought should be done and a vote was taken in each group to decide what their solution should be. The difference in maturity levels was obvious even in such young children which really emphasises how much home life impacts on children.

I was really focussing though on 15 and 16 year olds being given some grounding in our democratic system prior to becoming eligible to vote. Apologies for such a long post.

Wilma I live in Scotland and my GC even the smallest have some knowlegde of politics,the older two get modern studies at school which covers elections and different parties ..history of the parties etc .The youngest two have just picked up stuff from being around adults and hearing news etc .When we were talking about snacks being restricted to two a day one of the girls was outraged that any government could tell people what they should do.In her words "what people eat should be a choice of her and her parents and governments should just but out ,they should be sorting out more important things" That GD is 8 .By the time she's 16 I fully expect her to make her own decisions about how she thinks the country should be run AND to want a vote to make her opinion count .Maybe my fathers influence lives on ,he always told us our opinion counted and never to let anyone tell us different

Sounds like a future world leader paddyann!