4 months ago
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Farming minister Mark Spencer echoes warnings from Sunak that Starmer is planning to give more groups the vote beyond 16 and 17-year-olds
Good morning. Keir Starmer is taking part in a phone-in on LBC shortly. Political leaders talk to members of the public every day, but if broadcasters select their callers carefully, and choose articulate, informed, persistent people with serious concerns (and LBC are very good at doing this), then a phone-in can be perilous, as Margaret Thatcher discovered when Diana Gould asked her about the Belgrano in the 1983 election campaign. Starmer is up at 9am.
But he will arrive at the studio knowing the Tories are getting increasingly desperate. Last week they started deploying the argument that Labour were going to win anyway, but that people should vote to ensure they don’t get a supermajority. Now, perhaps worried that the prospect of a Labour supermajority isn’t scaring the electorate, they are claiming that, if Starmer wins, Labour will be in power for a generation.
It would be one thing if you believed that we just need to change the age that we generally consider people to become adults in this country [and] all the things that go along with that, all the rights and responsibilities …
But that’s not his argument... he’s only wanting to change the voting age, nothing else. So then you have to ask, well why is it that one thing that you’re happy to change, and nothing else?
So if he had a blank cheque, I think you could reasonably assume it wouldn’t just be votes at 16 – it’d be votes for immigrants and the rest.
Of course, [Labour] will change the voting system, they will make sure that they give votes to 16 year-olds, they have talked about giving votes to foreign nationals, to EU nationals … we could end up with a Labour government for 20 years if we get this wrong at this general election.
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