As a young student training to be a journalist, newspapers are my bible and to wake up one morning to find the MPs have shamed our country in the expenses row, I am left fuming with many questions unanswered. As a young person, it seems nobody wants to take any notice of me unless I join a gang and commit a crime – and this leaves me with a thought. Maybe young people act this way for attention, a way to express their feelings as our voices are not being heard anywhere else. We just get put on mute because of our age.
But what I don’t understand is why the Government wants to push education on young people but not politics as our minds are fresh and absorb more information than older people. So yes, we can have our say by voting but do they really listen to us?
When some of the most successful people in this world today started out young – take the Queen for instance – she was handed over the reigns to this country at the age of 25. Bill Gates founded Microsoft at the age of 21. Richard Branson founded Virgin at the age of 16 and Charlotte Church sung for the Pope at the age of 12. I could go on but I think you get my point.
So again I ask why the Government has not been successful in advertising politics to young people. With all the successful young people this world has to offer, you would think the Government would want to express the great ideas we young people have, opposed to the old fashioned ways of the older MPs of today.
The ICM survey interviewed 110 pupils for education watchdog Ofsted and showed the latest polls. Only a quarter of 14-16 year olds know that Labour was the Government, the Tories were the official opposition and Lib Dems were the third party. From a recent report of the HeadsUp online forum, 11-18 year olds were asked what they thought about politics. The majority of the forum users found politics boring and too complicated and thought that the use of technical words and long words showed this. Many forum users were also not sure about how relevant politics is to young people and how far up young people issues are on the political agenda.
This article was written by Sophie Porter a student on Dv8’s Multimedia and Journalism course. If you live in London and are interested in applying for this course click here. DV8 are based in Walthamstow and also run courses such as the Complete Music Industry Project and Music Production and Business.
