12 May Is There an Apathy of Care Towards Politics in our Generation?
Are we seeing a rise in teenagers being disconnected from the world? Is it more of a case we as young people feel that we aren’t spoken for when it comes to politics? Whichever is the case we have seen in recent years that the majority of young people aren’t voting, why is this?
Looking at the results of how young people voted in the 2015 General Election we may be able to see the turnout and the way in which young people may be swayed to vote or
not vote in
some cases.
The first eye catching statistic we learn from the infographic is that 43% of young people didn’t vote in the last general election, this is the difference between two parties, this is an audience which, if you suited their needs and gave them a reason to vote may land a party the victory. However there may be a reason for this, whether its that the parties aren’t looking at this crowd or if this percentage is people who are disconnected from politics is unknown. In the upcoming election the tories have said that they will be working on childhood obesity working with schools and the NHS, meanwhile Labour are focusing on removing tuition fees for university students, maybe with these incentives younger audiences may be drawn to polling stations, however maybe its time to put politics into the classroom to allow young people to have an understanding before
they leave high school rather than the apathy of care some young people have towards politics.
It is obvious that the younger voters were significantly more lenient towards Labour than the Tories, this continues with the trend that a high percentage of young people are more left wing than right. Another surprising fact that we can learn from the infographic is that 18-24 year olds were less lenient towards the Lib Dems with only 5%, and equivalently more likely to vote for the Green Party or UKIP, both with 8% of votes. This of course must be a massive hit to the Lib Dems due to their success in the 2010 General Election gaining a coalition with The Conservative Party, maybe a change to Tim Farron and the Coalition both caused the Lib Dems to lose support.
In conclusion it’s obvious to see from the pie chart that the overall majority of younger voters sway towards labour or the tories, however theres still a large percentage who do not vote at all, this is a very concerning fact, this is a group of which could completely change the results of the next election, to be able to send a message from our generation to our peers saying “I do care about how politics effect my life” or maybe its sheer laziness and an apathy of care towards the system, we live in a world where it is deemed a good thing to have a lack of care towards politics. So which is it? an apathy of care or a group of people feeling unspoken for?
