16: Old enough to legally have children but too young to vote!

By Stanley Collymore

It’s a funny, as in peculiar and not so much humorous,

thing is life; you know what I mean? How sometimes

entirely out of the blue you quite surprisingly find

your head bombarded with a host of perplexing

questions that even though you might very

well be aware that you haven’t the answers to most, if

any of them, the situation which you’ve nevertheless

found yourself in all the same sets you seriously

thinking. And for me one recurrent and rather

puzzling question that is markedly part of

this aforesaid process that I constantly

see is the distinct lack of a natural

consensus regarding a suitable

age at which all citizens of

the United Kingdom should

legally be allowed in all

state elections – both

local and national

ones – to start

voting.

A group of highly intelligent, rational, far-sighted,

evidently prescient-minded and political savvy

teenagers from my hometown in Reading

Berkshire: a county in southern England,

absolutely debunking the recurrent and

utterly self-serving myth asininely

perpetrated and also assiduously

promoted and encouraged by most politicians

within the major so-called mainstream

political parties in Britain that British teenagers

are intuitively consumed with political apathy

and therefore aren’t in the least interested in

elections let alone voting have in earnest

response challenged this totally untrue

Establishment and other naysayers’

warped points of view about this

and through a campaign that

they’re vigorously waging are defiantly

and most courageously taking these

detractors on. And to which I

warmly and encouraging add:

“Good on you lasses and

lads, everyone; and

well done to these

 principled and

progressives

residents of

our greatly

cherished

Reading!”

© Stanley V. Collymore

10 November 2016.

Author’s Comments:

A typically warm, enthusiastic and a genuinely friendly welcome from the amazingly and most thankfully hospitable, by any objective understanding or interpretation of that word or impartial guidelines one might care to use, inhabitants of the truly wonderful town of Reading in Berkshire, England.

Authentically multicultural in character with a diversity of racial and cultural inputs that naturally and from a beneficially cultural perspective, noticeably non-ostentatiously but most positively and enduringly do gel with as well as enhance each other, the town of Reading jovially referred to as little Barbados because of its generationally longstanding, deeply established and well integrated Bajan-British Diaspora that is successfully and happily settled there; and similarly the hometown of truly superb and most agreeable families like the Winslets: Roger, a staunch Labour Party activist, wife Sally, incredibly beautiful as she has always been; daughter Kate who needs no introduction unless you’ve been living on a far off distant planet and only just arrived in England, and, of course, her siblings Beth, Anna and Joss all of whom were mere children at the time, who I’ve known for most of my life and who as a family lived only 100 years away from my parents home and afterwards a quarter of a mile distance away when independently I left the familial roost.

Conveniently located as it is, the absolutely charming town of Reading is just 30 minutes by train from the centre of London and 45 minutes ride either by car or coach to Heathrow Airport. It is also the home to one of Britain’s premier progressives and genuinely academic universities, none other than Reading University itself – one of my alma mater – as well as two of our country’s well established and exceedingly outstanding grammar schools: Reading School and Kendrick School respectively. Furthermore the town has over the years gradually and in typical organized fashion been the focal point for the relocation of several businesses out of London, primarily although not exclusively so white collar ones.

A Labour administration currently runs Reading Borough Council and its leader is Councillor Joe Lovelock who I’ve known for years and when I lived in Reading was my local councillor. But from my own personal observation and vast experience I’ve yet to come across a Reading Borough Councillor of whatever political hue that doesn’t always essay to put the interests of Reading and its people first and foremost in their professional as well as their individual considerations and activities – and I happily raise my hat to all of them - because it’s where they live, think highly of it and want only the best for it. And if political honours meant any thing at all Reading would be top of any list for such acclamation. And if an incompetent and unelected EU Commission can be awarded the Nobel Prize then Reading Borough Council, its hard working councillors, diligent officials and the people of the entire borough collectively deserve the same! But whether or not that ever happens those of us associated with our town Reading will as we have always done continue to respect and love it immensely and intensely!

So it comes as no surprise to me that it’s enterprising youngsters from the town of Reading who are doing everything they can to ensure that not only their generation but also future ones too get at the very earliest and most appropriate opportunity the wonderful occasion to politically and astutely shape not only the future of their beloved town Reading but also the entire United Kingdom as well through the example they’re setting; and that hopefully others nationwide will emulate them. So go out there and pitch for them and in the process put a permanent stop to the nonsense I’ve highlighted:

# 16: Old enough to lawfully marry and have children but too young for voting!