Votes at 16 - no thanks. I'd raise it to 21!

So Starmer, who is now working full time on digging his own grave, wants votes for 16-year-olds. This is a bad idea, as bad as teenage pregnancy. I prefer raising it to 21!

My first piece of evidence is myself. I was one. At 16 I has a Che Guevara poster on my wall, was a fake Marxist and had beliefs on politics, football teams even food that were absolutes... and absolutely ridiculous There were many hills I’d have gladly died on, metaphorically of course.

That’s the problem. We lack the tempering effect of experience, exposure to other groups of people, fiscal responsibilities, having kids. At 16 you’ve spent most of your time in one age group. Watching prank videos is not real life, neither are inordinate amounts of time devoted to influencers. Which is basically self-lobbying. Neither is taking pictures of yourself, adding filters or Tik Tok dances. Nor binging on Love Island or watching people eat enormous amounts of food. The teen brain is wired for novelty, peer validation and weird stuff online.

Teens are also curious, bored and boundary-pushing, so latch onto obscure causes and oddball stuff. That’s what being a teenager is all about. To be honest, that’s great, do it, enjoy it, just don’t vote for anyone on the basis of your fickle obsessions.

Also, given all we hear about mental health, do we really want teenagers to get heavily involved in what is essentially an endless tale of disasters and catastrophes? You have decades of this shit ahead of you, relax and enjoy your teenage years. Don’t destroy them with doom-laden tales of war, genocides and planetary disaster.

Let me tell you a secret, those kids that join a political party at 16, and you see giving those earnest speeches at political conferences. They are hated by both their peers and all sensible adults. There's nothing worse than a precocious teenager preaching to adults about how much they matter and if only we listened to them the world would be a utopian heaven. Is there anything more insufferable than those students who were active in the student Union? The tragedy of our age is that so many of these arseholes eventually get into the House of Commons.

Imagine thinking that politics is the solution to the rise in mental health and fall in wellbeing. Can you imagine a therapist saying “What you need is NOT more with your friends, having fun and feeling great, even ecstatic. What you need is to join the young Labour, Liberal, Conservative, Reform group and get out there arguing with people online.”

Responsibilities and experience come later now, as paper rounds have disappeared and kids work far less than they did, as it is illegal. On top of that they all stay on at school until 18, many until their early 20s and, of course everyone needs a useless Masters degree to extend this period, and their debt, even further.

They will want to vote for open borders, free money, endless services, limitless holidays, everyone working from home, no cars and free travel. Until they have to pay for all of this as adults.

Also, across Europe, young people are now voting for the far right. If you think all of them are embryonic liberals in the making – think again. In Austria, Argentina and more recently Germany, the Netherlands and France, the young vote has drifted to the right. What you get is a drift towards both the far left and far right, as they tend to hold more extreme views, with certainty, before they hit the brick wall of real life. In Scotland it was used to boost the SNP vote, as there was a shift toward populism – extremely nationalism, a charismatic leader, authoritarian attitudes, control of the media and madcap policies like self-ID.

Let them enjoy what those halcyon years. Get drunk, take drugs, be fanatical. We had two boys. They were insufferably disrespectful and wild. Despite the craziness, the police, ambulance, impromptu parties, they’ve turned into likeable adults. There is no need to make them even more insufferable on politics at that age.