Public Elections - reduction in voting age to 16 - States Assembly

people’s well-being:
Working life
Family life
Community life
That is how people experience life, not in neat Whitehall based boxes.
And I want to be straight with people.
I’ll try to explain how important it is that we politicians, while not being limited in our
aspirations for government…
…should recognise the limitations of government in addressing these deeper questions.
Politicians shouldn’t pretend to be able to fix every problem by taking more and more
power from citizens.
I believe that trusting people and sharing responsibility is the right way forward.
It’s the best way to respond to the challenges facing us at work, in our families and in
our communities, in the decades ahead.
Our vision of an empowering state, rather than the current reality of an overpowering
state, offers the path to the good life that everybody seeks.
My politics is about empowering people.
Not in a vague sense of making them feel better.
I’m talking about something much more specific.
The right to make decisions about the things that affect their lives.
Society is infinitely more complex than it was a century ago.
The answer is not to attempt to control almost everything from the centre or through
regional proxies.
That’s an analogue solution to the problems of a digital age.
And it’s doomed to failure.
I want to quote from Power to the People.
In the section entitled New Citizens.
"British society which is now better educated, more afluent, expects greater control and
choice over many aspects of life, feels no deference towards those in positions of
authority, and is not as bound by the traditional bonds of place, class and institution that
developed during the industrial era."
Absolutely right - but there’s a problem.
Voters are more sophisticated than ever before…