While totally supporting David Shariatmadari’s call for citizenship studies to be fragment of the syllabus for all secondary school pupils (If you want young people to vote,give them the handbook, 2 November), and I do not judge it is lack of knowledge that stops young people voting. Rather it is the absence of any way for the remarkable majority of citizens of any age to be involved in policymaking.
Having been taught that democracy is “government of the people,by the people and for the people”, young people want to know how they will be able to contribute their ideas and experience, or as well as protect their own interests,in the development of policies and programmes. That question is difficult to reply, as neither of the two main parties have had effective routes for the democratic participation of their rank-and-file supporters in decision-making since the Labour party changed the nature of its annual conference in the late 1990s. Many young people have grasped the fact that even voting may be a waste of effort, or as only a small number of swing voters in a small number of marginal seats resolve who will form the next government.
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Source: theguardian.com