On Tuesday Afternoon in Brighton, Ed Miliband raised an issue during his speech that I believe has the potential to be a political game changer, and  one that will be resisted as much in his own party as by the current coalition partners. However if he has the electoral strength and integrity to deliver on it, the impact on future elections could be significant. He has promised to extend suffrage to 16 and 17 year olds. I argued strongly that this was something that should have been introduced during the PCC elections last November, due to the disproportionate impact that Crime has on the lives of young people. Even though there were no votes to ‘collect’ I commited some of my campaigning time to speaking to 16 and 17 year olds, in Schools and other settings in the period prior to that election. The questions and concerns that they raised were often quite different to the those that were raised in hustings meetings elsewhere with much older audiences. It was noticeable that the candidates from the main political parties did not support my point of view.

Watching the footage of the 18 year olds being interviewed back in 1969 when suffrage was lowered from 21, it was clear that a number of them were still at School but at that time most of them would have been part of the very small numbers who remained in education to enable them to attend University. Today most of our young people remain in education or formal training until they are at least 18. This means that every School and College in a given constituency, as we approach elections, especially General Elections will consider inviting political candidates into the building to speak to their students and engage with them, in anticipation of the votes that these young people will be able to cast. After years of teaching about the value of civic engagement, PSHE classes will be able to entice potential Councillors and MPs into the School before elections. This will be a very different experience to that which most prospective MPs currently experience. The public hustings events which do take place across the country, are usually easy to read for candidates. The organisations that hold them, to a large extent shape the demographic of those present. However Schools and Colleges are very different. The impact of speaking to a group of 30-50 young people, each with access to social media, on their territory will be a challenge to many of the candidates who currently rely in large part on their party systems to get them elected. The majority of these newly enfranchised votes will have no allegiance to any party system or rhetoric, there views may present something of a challenge for the candidates!