Lowering More Than The Voting Age

As much as anything else, the lowering of the voting age to 18 was a political misjudgement: Harold Wilson thought that it would win him the 1970 General Election, which he lost. By then, Labour already looked like the Establishment, the old order against which teenagers like to kick. Labour had been in for a mere six years (only half the time for which Labour will have been in by the time of the 2009 Election). But six years is a long time to teenagers. Is six years a long time to you? No, it isn't to me, either. We're beyond all that. We're not children any more.

The treatment of children, including teenage children, as adults is a seamless garment. With the votes for children lobby comes the anti-smacking lobby, incomprehensible at first glance, because beating children is already illegal. But in fact, its aim is the destruction of parental authority, because with the anti-smacking lobby comes the sex education lobby, on which, and on those who come with which, see here.