In short
David Runciman argues for lowering the UK voting age to six, claiming it’s a serious way to rebalance democracy toward the young and refresh a stagnant, aging electorate.
Guest backgrounds
David Runciman is an honorary professor of politics at the University of Cambridge (former teacher) and a full-time podcaster running Past, Present, Future. Host Sophia Smith-Gaylor is an author and journalist.
Key claims
Universal suffrage should be based on personhood and interests, not adult “competence.” Adults aren’t competence-tested either, and voting often reflects tribal feelings, not detailed policy knowledge. Aging societies and lower youth turnout leave older voters deciding outcomes, so enfranchising children could force politicians to engage with new concerns. He also argues compulsory voting could be needed to avoid reinforcing middle-class advantages.
Notable examples
Historical enfranchisement debates—especially women’s suffrage—used “incapable” and “dangerous” arguments that proved wrong; women sometimes voted more conservatively than husbands. He cites focus groups with six-, eight-, and ten-year-olds and compares their cynicism/idealism to adults.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Case for Lowering the Voting Age
3:06 to 4:50
Sophia introduces David Runciman's radical proposal to lower the voting age to six.
“and the radical ideas that could define the future.”
Runciman's Background and Initial Reactions
4:50 to 6:41
David discusses his background and the initial reactions to his proposal of lowering the voting age.
“David, thank you so much for joining us on Radicals.”
Arguments for Children Voting
6:41 to 9:46
David outlines the rationale behind allowing children to vote and challenges common objections.
“interests me why people find the idea so shocking.”
Historical Context of Voting Rights
9:46 to 11:54
David compares the arguments against children's suffrage with historical arguments against women's suffrage.
“When we moved to a form of universal suffrage first, for men above a certain age, then men and women, we abandoned that.”
Understanding the Concept of Universal Suffrage
11:54 to 14:00
David discusses the importance of universal suffrage and the implications of voting age limits.
“When women were enfranchised, they often turned out to be more conservative than their husbands.”
The Complexity of Voting Influences
14:00 to 15:54
Understand how various influences affect children's voting behavior.
“universal suffrage while maintaining one person one vote and i think if you give up one person one vote you're going down a path to something which is messy complicated and probably would create a lot of unhappiness.”
Insights from Six-Year-Olds on Voting
15:54 to 17:46
Explore the surprising responses of children regarding their views on voting.
“Their friends, their teachers, it's fine.”
Changing Age Demographics in Voting
17:46 to 21:23
Learn about the shifting age profile of voters and its implications for democracy.
“Well, that seems to me like a perfectly reasonable spread with the eight-year-olds as the ones coming up with interesting and fresh ideas.”
Electrifying Democracy: The Role of Young Voters
21:23 to 24:14
Discuss how including younger voters could invigorate the political landscape.
“generation but for a while at least it would be electrifying would they be taken seriously would they be manipulated by the politicians?”
The Debate on Voting Competence
24:14 to 27:20
Examine arguments regarding voting competence between children and older adults.
“action, catalyzing it perhaps in a way that's not already happening.”
Show all 21 chapters
Rethinking Voting Age Criteria
27:20 to 28:00
Consider the fairness of voting age criteria in relation to competence.
“It used to be, should only be extended to people who pay taxes.”
Debating Age and Voting Rights
28:00 to 29:24
Exploring the implications of voting rights for different age groups, particularly seniors and children.
“controversial here i know my family members we all see it right people live much much longer there is much, much more cognitive decline because people live longer.”
Simone de Beauvoir and Voting
29:24 to 31:00
Discussing historical perspectives on enfranchisement and the arguments against it.
“in France only enfranchised women after just at the end of the second world war and the argument in France was that classic argument, which is voting is a burden and it's difficult and it's complicated.”
Children's Political Awareness
31:00 to 33:06
Examining how children are educated about civic duties and their potential voting preferences.
“You ask kids to go and plant an effing tree and you won't even let them vote on the people who are telling them to do that.”
Risks of Enfranchising Children
33:06 to 34:51
Analyzing the potential risks and uncertainties involved in allowing children to vote.
“So it's not going to go along with a lot of children being in parliament.”
Radical Ideas in Politics
34:51 to 36:50
Discussing the nature of radical proposals and their place in political discourse.
“Votes really matter, and you will get them any way you can.”
The Future of Democracy
36:50 to 38:49
Exploring how ideas like child suffrage might influence broader democratic reforms.
“I find it funny that people find it so funny.”
Persuasion and Voting Behavior
38:49 to 41:13
Investigating how familial and societal influences shape children's voting behaviors and opinions.
“The really important thing to say, again, just to reinforce this point, it's really interesting.”
Exploring the Value of Voting
42:00 to 43:08
Learn about the role of voting in expressing dissatisfaction and engaging citizens.
“You can't get them to eat the food that you want them to eat.”
David Runciman's Political Proposal
43:08 to 44:15
Discover David Runciman's ideas on refreshing the political landscape through child suffrage.
“and I think what I'm taking from what he has said and especially how he responded to suggestions that well this feels like a proposal It feels like a theory.”
David Runciman's Political Proposal
44:34 to 46:01
Discover David Runciman's ideas on refreshing the political landscape through child suffrage.
“I'm David Dimbleby, and from the History Podcast and BBC Radio 4, this is Invisible Hands, The American Century.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00David Runciman:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:37David Runciman:Thank you.
1:00David Runciman:success, navigating new beginnings, and why starting over can feel so hard. Listen to choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast, or wherever you listen.
1:15David Runciman:Hi, I'm John Byrne Murdoch. Usually I'm a columnist and chief data reporter at the Financial Times, but next week I'll be your host on Radical. I'm going to be talking to Derek Gow, who's a British farmer, conservationist and rewilder. For a long time, Derek's been making the case for reintroducing animal species into the areas they used to roam. But now he's moving from talking the talk to walking the walk and has decided to do something about it himself. On his farm in Devon, Derek's been breeding animals that were once indigenous to Britain, but in lots of cases have now been extinct here for centuries.
1:53David Runciman:The aim is to inspire the people in charge to go further and faster on releasing these species into the British wild and raise awareness of all of this among the rest of us. Think wild boar, beavers, even wild cats like the lynx, all being reared on Derek's farm with the goal that one day soon these species will again roam freely across our fields, forests and waterways. If you can roam across a waterway that is. Now Derek's project is controversial. It's definitely radical and needless to say, not everyone loves it. Some farming and animal rights groups have been up in arms. They're worried about safety, environmental impact, even whether this is actually legal.
2:35David Runciman:So there's a lot to get into and we would love for you to join in the conversation with your radical questions for Derek. If you do have a question on this fascinating topic, please leave us a WhatsApp voice note on plus 44 330 123 9480 or you can email us on radical at bbc.co.uk. Now on with this week's episode.
3:05David Runciman:Hello and welcome to Radical, conversations about the underlying forces reshaping our world and the radical ideas that could define the future. I'm Sophia Smith-Gaylor, an author and journalist, and I'm here presenting Radical this week. Today we're talking about an idea that, to a lot of you I'm sure, might sound utterly mad. You will no doubt be aware of the debate around lowering the voting age in the UK to 16, but my guest this week wants to lower it even further. and by some way he wants to lower it to six. You heard that right, six years old. This idea was first proposed eight years ago by my guest today, David Runciman.
3:52David Runciman:He's an expert on politics, an honorary professor of politics at the University of Cambridge, where he taught for many years, and he's now a full-time podcaster exploring the history of ideas on his podcast, Past, Present, Future. But David is here to argue that this idea isn't actually anywhere near as radical as it sounds. He thinks this huge change to the electorate would be part of a sensible rebalancing of our politics that he says has come to favour the old over the young as our society has aged and that it's the perfect expression of the principle of universal suffrage that we claim to observe.
4:31David Runciman:He also argues that this huge extension of the vote might just be the kind of shot in the arm that our stale and fractious democracy needs. Other people, of course, have some questions. As always on this podcast, we'll go into it with an open mind and a critical lens. So with that in mind, I hope you enjoy my conversation with David Runciman. David, thank you so much for joining us on Radicals.
5:01Sophia Smith Galer:pleasure.
5:01David Runciman:Remind us what the voting age currently is and sort of quite how significant a difference this would be.
5:08Sophia Smith Galer:Okay, that would be a big difference. It's 18 in England. It's 16 in Scotland for Scottish elections. There is a move to lower it to 16 for the whole of the UK. That's quite controversial. People get quite agitated sometimes about lowering the voting age from 18 to 16.
5:29David Runciman:And you want to be more controversial and lower it to six.
5:31Sophia Smith Galer:Yeah I mean I'm completely aware that for most people six isn't just a bit further down the path from 18 to 16. Six, I know this, sounds like lunacy.
5:42David Runciman:Where did this idea begin?
5:44Sophia Smith Galer:So actually genuinely it began because six and 16 sound quite like each other. I was giving a talk to sixth formers who wanted to come and study at Cambridge where I used to teach and there were questions at the end and often sixth formers would say do you think the voting age should be lowered to 16 and as a throwaway line I said I would lower it to six and they all laughed as though I'd said something that was obviously a joke and then I went away to think about it and read up about it and looked at the arguments there are some serious arguments and found that I persuaded myself and actually the arguments against it are pretty weak.
6:23Sophia Smith Galer:And the more I studied it, the more committed I became to it. But also that initial response remains the response. I often talk about this and people laugh. I mean, they either laugh or they make a sort of guttural, unhappy noise. And it really interests me why people find the idea so shocking.
6:44David Runciman:Take me back to that research that you did when you first generated that idea what were some of the arguments that had already sort of come before you
6:54Sophia Smith Galer:I think the for me the the key to it was to reverse the way that people normally think the argument has to go here is what sounds like an outrageous idea you've got to justify it you're going to have to have some seriously good arguments for this because it's so mad whereas actually you can put it the other way around why do people get the vote they get the vote because they're citizens They get the vote because they have interests. They have rights. They have opinions. They have a stake in the future. All of those things are true of children. In fact, the last is more true of children than of anyone else.
7:27Sophia Smith Galer:Are they going to live longer into the future that we're all voting for? And I found myself thinking, actually, the argument needs to be the other way around. You need to tell me why it's a bad idea, because we call it universal suffrage. We say one person, one vote. We're not saying children aren't people or persons. so why are they the only group with the exception of such categories of people who are incarcerated
7:51David Runciman:and that's a totally separate argument and generally speaking after like you've said some people simply laugh that may be their first reaction the people who disagree with you what tends to be the most common criticism that they have of the idea i would say by far the most
8:07Sophia Smith Galer:common criticism of the idea is that children aren't capable they're not able to do what we think you need to be able to do to vote? And then you say to people, well, what do you think we, us adults, need to be able to do to vote? And they say, well, we need to be rational, we need to be well informed, we need to understand the issues. To which my response would be, not just to the person who's saying this, are you well informed? Are you rational? Do you understand the issues? But I know I don't, right? And I used to be a professor of politics, right? And I know how I vote. Do I read all the manifestos?
8:43Sophia Smith Galer:Do I understand the arguments for and against? Do I think of it in policy terms? No, like everyone else, I'm basically tribal. A lot of it has to do with background and upbringing. A lot of it is emotional. Some of it is impulsive. Often I don't know how I should vote. And I have occasionally changed my mind at the last moment. and that's what voting is so we have this idealized version of it and actually idealized version of ourselves rational well-informed and if you think of it as more like an expression of feelings an ability to complain to express anger to reject to say that i'm sick of these people they never listen to me they give me a horrible feeling they actually make me feel sick whatever it is, of course kids can have those feelings too.
9:35Sophia Smith Galer:And then it's also the case, and I think this is just as important, that we stopped arguing that the vote went with a competence criterion, essentially. When we moved to a form of universal suffrage first, for men above a certain age, then men and women, we abandoned that. So we hold onto it for children, but we don't have it for adults. We do not take votes away from people. We do not test people for their competence.
10:00David Runciman:Can you talk about that? What happened when the right to vote was expanded? Because I think you've seen some of these arguments come up. Yeah.
10:10Sophia Smith Galer:And the expansion of the franchise is a long process in Britain, longer than anywhere else, because in a way we've been doing this longer than anywhere else. It moves through stages. First of all, there are religious groups that are disenfranchised, Catholics, Jews, so on. Then through the 19th century, the great enfranchisements of working men in gradual processes. and that's based on property essentially moving towards something which is a propertyless enfranchisement age becomes the criterion and then the biggest enfranchisement of all which is the enfranchisement of women which happens after the first world war in two stages initially with a property measure in not eventually so then we have equality between men and women i think the most interesting arguments are the arguments that were made against enfranchising women, because they're very similar to the arguments people make now against enfranchising children.
11:00Sophia Smith Galer:The argument, late 19th century, early 20th century, women aren't capable of it. They don't have enough of an understanding of the man stuff, which is war and money. Particularly the argument was they don't fight in wars. And politics is often about going to war, so you can't trust them. They are interested in more trivial things, more domestic things. And also, crucially, the argument was it'll be bad for women because they have quite nice lives that aren't cluttered up with all of this nasty, aggressive politics. Why would you want to inflict that on women? And as we know, all those arguments are rubbish, straightforwardly rubbish.
11:37Sophia Smith Galer:And there was also a thought that it was dangerous because you just don't know what they might do with the vote. And the assumption was they're all going to be very left-wing women because they don't really understand about money and finance and the importance of discipline. that also turned out to be rubbish. When women were enfranchised, they often turned out to be more conservative than their husbands. And it had been assumed they would do what their husbands told them to do, also rubbish. So children, it said, they'll do what their parents say. They don't understand about money. They don't understand what matters.
12:09Sophia Smith Galer:They have nice protected lives. Why would we want to sully it with politics? I would say all of those arguments also don't hold for children.
12:18David Runciman:When I was reading up about your idea, and I thought, ah, this is a way to really test the idea of universal suffrage. How could we say everyone has the right to vote when we do not give everyone the right to vote? And then I thought, hang on, but David wants to lower the vote to six-year-olds. Why does David not want to remove the lower age limit altogether?
12:38Sophia Smith Galer:So there are people who do make that argument. And there's a small group of people who advocate radical changes to the voting age. I don't know where you would say the distribution of opinion is, but there's quite a strong view that it should be zero. And that's usually on the grounds it's a human right. And you don't say humanity begins at six. You could say something like personhood begins at a certain point, because being a person is somebody who's capable of having opinions and expressing them, which you can't do when you're six months old. If it's below six, it becomes a system of proxy voting.
13:17Sophia Smith Galer:So then the argument is your parents will do it for their children, or maybe parents will get extra votes when their children are very young, or young people will vote for even younger people. I still have a strong attachment to the idea of one person, one vote. I think that is the key to universal suffrage. I think any system where some people have more votes than other people, which is a Victorian idea, John Stuart Mill thought, you know, one vote for a working man, 10 votes for someone who passed the civil servant exam. that's also a terrible idea because it creates resentment it creates feelings of first class second class third class citizens if parents get extra votes why should people who aren't parents have fewer votes i think six education say in school let's say is the closest you can get to universal suffrage while maintaining one person one vote and i think if you give up one person one vote you're going down a path to something which is messy complicated and probably would create a lot of unhappiness.
14:14David Runciman:Okay yes because I thought that when you said that you first said six because you know rhetorically it sounded like 16 what I thought is that an arbitrary selection and what you've just described is it's it's more connected to perhaps when a child first escapes the full control of their parents you just said that perhaps under six it might be more of a proxy vote but how can you really assure that a child as young as six would not vote like their parents would or i actually think more likely even like their favorite youtuber would i don't think it
14:55Sophia Smith Galer:would be a problem if they do because that's what we all do uh just the question how many people vote like their parents vote or vote differently from their parents because their parents vote the other way it's a completely valid basis on which to to vote we never make judgments of adults for doing that. Are adults influenced by things that they see on YouTube before they vote? We have to hear ourselves. We glorify and valorise our own voting. But look at us. We're all children, right? We're all children in how we vote, which is fine. Voting is not deciding the policy for the future. Voting is not making a judgment about complex economic questions.
15:33Sophia Smith Galer:That's what we have politicians for. Voting is expressing sentiments, feelings, traditions, ideas, a sense of community, of belonging. And also like votes for women, they'll do what their husbands say. That was the assumption. Turned out not to be true. We don't know. We've never polled children. We haven't asked them. We don't know. I have a feeling a lot of children would do what their grandparents think. Their friends, their teachers, it's fine. Or they'll rebel against their friends, their teachers, as their grandparents. It's all fine.
16:04David Runciman:Have you had an opportunity to bring this idea to six-year-olds?
16:08Sophia Smith Galer:I have.
16:09David Runciman:Tell me what they said.
16:11Sophia Smith Galer:They were mixed on it in the same way that at the end of the 19th century, women were very divided as to whether or not women should be enfranchised. It was a really divisive issue, not just men versus women, but among women. And classes of six-year-olds, some of them say, we would just vote for the people who wanted to offer us more suites, which is also fine. I mean, again, look at us. Do we adults sometimes vote for the people who offer us more suites? Some of them said, absolutely. No one ever listens to us. Our teachers never listen to us. It would be amazing. They put it quite like the way I'm putting it.
16:45Sophia Smith Galer:I also worked in a primary school for a term with groups of six, eight, 10-year-olds, talking about this idea, asking them for their views. It's very interesting, very surprising, unusual we also did focus groups with them like adult focus groups so we got someone who does professional focus grouping work and we got them to ask the same questions to children that they ask to adults and the great news is you can ask the same questions because in focus groups the sort of questions that adults get asked are what kind of animal does boris johnson make you think of that gets asked yeah it's you know like if you have a word do word association right this politician or you're shown a picture of a politician and tell me what you think boring the adults say shown a picture of Keir Starmer they went boring so they do the same stuff and
Read the full transcript
17:34David Runciman:it was really interesting I mean I can give you the results yes tell me yeah so so the I'm sounding
17:41Sophia Smith Galer:like I'm slightly undermining my idea here but the person running the group said the six-year-olds was like doing it with adults on acid in the sense that it was random and surreal but interesting and I have to say some people here lowering the voting age to six as saying six-year-olds will decide the future of the country no they won't they'll be a tiny tiny minority the eight-year-olds were idealistic and really interesting and the woman who ran the focus group said if only the adults were more open to ideas like this and she said again I'm quoting here the 10-year-olds were like adults in the north of England and by that what she meant was they were cynical and alienated because they said stuff like, this hasn't got anything to do with us, these politicians are all in it for themselves.
18:23Sophia Smith Galer:They're all rich, aren't they? I was doing this in Cambridge. Westminster is miles away. No one ever listens to us. Well, that seems to me like a perfectly reasonable spread with the eight-year-olds as the ones coming up with interesting and fresh ideas.
18:39David Runciman:Let's talk about what you think is going wrong because we're not currently including this particular demographic in terms of British politics, what do you think would actually be improved?
18:53Sophia Smith Galer:I want to be careful here not to make it sound like this is just straightforwardly a solution to a problem with the way we do democratic politics at the moment. But it is the case that over, say, a couple of generations, there's been a huge change in the age profile of the electorate because we are just an incredibly rapidly aging society. There are many, many more voters in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s than there used to be, and relatively fewer younger voters when you start at 18. And then that's exacerbated by the fact that this is a universal phenomenon across advanced democracies, established democracies, which is that younger voters turn out in smaller numbers than older voters.
19:39Sophia Smith Galer:And it's partly a reinforcing thing. Younger voters don't feel like elections meet their needs, so they don't turn out. And because they don't turn out, older voters tend to decide election outcomes.
19:51David Runciman:When you said earlier about grown-ups and children alike, we probably would vote for the people who give us more sweets.
19:59Sophia Smith Galer:Sometimes.
20:00David Runciman:Sometimes. You just spoke to the sort of simultaneous enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of 18-year-olds, that in theory, plenty of them, they all have the vote. However, lots of them do not want to turn out, perhaps because they don't think that their vote is going to make much of a difference. So if politicians aren't really engaging people 18 to 25, let's say, not giving them the sweets, would they really give six-year-olds the time of day?
20:28Sophia Smith Galer:So I don't know what would happen over time, but if you just do the thought experiment, say I got to wave my magic wand and the next general election, the voting age was lower to six, It would scare, you know the phrase I want to use here, it would scare the out of the politicians. And at least for an election or two, they would absolutely. It's a large enough enfranchisement. It's not enough to shift the balance, but it's a large enough enfranchisement of a group of people who are basically unknown to politicians. We'd have to start polling them and asking them what they thought about all sorts of things.
21:02Sophia Smith Galer:politicians would have to talk to them have to go into schools have conversations with them at least to start with i think there would be an enormous amount of engagement and the historical evidence is that mass enfranchisements have a galvanizing effect on democracies it doesn't last in a generation or two it starts to feel tired again well who knows where the world will be in a generation but for a while at least it would be electrifying would they be taken seriously would they be manipulated by the politicians? Would the politicians start lying to them? I mean, a bit, as they do to us. I also have a feeling that this would have to happen in schools.
21:38Sophia Smith Galer:I think the kids' ballot boxes would probably need to be in schools. Politicians, I think, should come into schools to talk to the kids. We all behave better. I know I do when I go into schools to talk to young children and their teachers are watching. I don't think it would lower the tone of what happens in schools. I think it would raise the tone of politics. I think if politicians were talking to children, they would actually be a bit more careful about some of the things that they say.
22:02David Runciman:You've talked about democracy being stagnant and needing refreshing. So what do you mean by that? What's stagnant about it?
22:10Sophia Smith Galer:There are lots of different signs that people are frustrated with the way that we do democracy. Polling evidence that they don't trust politicians, low turnout, particularly evidence that younger voters feel disenchanted some of them feel disenfranchised even though they have the vote and I think we're all aware the pitch of frustration with our politics and that includes abuse it includes merely the fact that it's hard work being a politician in a different way than in the past as well as the actual hard work the stuff you have to put up with is really difficult it's very difficult to persuade people to think of politics as a career.
22:50Sophia Smith Galer:I taught students for a long time, and I'm aware over my career, how many fewer of them were interested in the idea of this as a career for themselves. It just looks so awful and nasty. But in history, politics gets stark, it gets very partisan, it gets divisive. There's a feeling that there isn't cooperation across party lines. I know we now have a prime minister in the UK who's at least talking that talk. It'd be very interesting to see if he's able to walk the war because it is still so divisive and there is so much frustration with it and enfranchisement making good on the promise that everyone gets to say is one way to give politics a kind of jolt it's not a panacea it's not a cure-all it has all sorts of consequences but i i don't think i'm alone in this and this isn't just polling evidence that sense that our politics in the uk in particular, as we've cycled through prime ministers years after Brexit, feels a little trapped in a set of arguments it's struggling to get out of as long term problems remain unaddressed.
23:55Sophia Smith Galer:It may be possible to address them through the system, but it hasn't happened. This won't solve that problem.
24:01David Runciman:But the system needs shaking.
24:03Sophia Smith Galer:But exactly. I mean, that's how I would put it. It's like not even shaking. It's just like a gentle kick under the table.
24:10David Runciman:I'm thinking about what would electrify and terrify and push into action, catalyzing it perhaps in a way that's not already happening. And I am interested in some countries that have decided to do this and increase participation in voting by forcing it and making it compulsory. What do you make of that? Because you would lower the vote to six, but you would perhaps still not make it compulsory for children to take part?
24:37Sophia Smith Galer:So there are lots of reforms that I think would, and I hate even using the word improve because it's too much of a value judgment, but would make a difference to our politics. This is not about outcomes. This is about process. I used to think compulsory voting was a little bit too much of a sort of tweak to be exciting. But I've actually also been persuaded compulsory voting could make a significant difference. and I should say up front here I'm aware the voting age is not going to be lowered to six certainly probably not in my lifetime but were it to happen I think it probably would need to go along with compulsory voting because there's always a danger that the people who end up using the franchise are the ones who are already in some ways better plugged in have more social capital which is true of children too so the middle class ones the ones at the better schools the ones with the parents who say, darling, you must use your vote.
25:33Sophia Smith Galer:People sacrificed and died for this compared to the ones who come from communities that feel really disenfranchised and cut off. So you might get a reinforcing of the effect that certain communities vote more than other communities. Make it compulsory, do it in schools, so it'd be easy to make it compulsory. Do so. Elections would have to happen in term time and see what happens.
26:02David Runciman:I hope you're enjoying my conversation with David Runciman. Don't forget, you can subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds so you don't miss future episodes. And make sure you've got push notifications turned on and that way you'll get an alert whenever we publish a new episode so you'll never miss out. Now, back to David Runciman.
26:24David Runciman:Going back to six-year-olds, I understand how the arguments were obviously absolutely ridiculous in trying to not give women the vote by suggesting they were not competent enough. A little similar, frankly, to arguments I've seen made about lowering to 16, that someone who's 16 could join the army, but no, you can't vote. For many people, it made the argument to give 16-year-olds the vote more compelling. there is an argument with children that is quite different to when we're talking about the vast suite and smorgasbord of adults there there is i accept that like you said people want
27:07Sophia Smith Galer:to say there is something that marks these people out as adults that they have a stake you know they are somehow people making the kinds of commitments or sacrifices or whatever it is or they have the rights that go along with adulthood. It used to be, should only be extended to people who pay taxes. Because if you give it to people who are in receipt of government funds, rather than paying into the public treasury, they will vote for politicians who want to just increase welfare. We've got beyond those arguments. But I think the really crucial analogy here, and this really matters in an ageing society, is with older voters.
27:45Sophia Smith Galer:older people are also not going to be joining the army older people are also not going to be necessarily paying into the public pot they may well be completely dependent on the state and in aging societies older people do lose competence right i'm not saying anything controversial here i know my family members we all see it right people live much much longer there is much, much more cognitive decline because people live longer. And we don't think, I certainly don't think that those people should lose the vote. I don't think there's a good argument for saying you should send people into old people's homes and do dementia tests and disenfranchise the people who fail those tests.
28:26David Runciman:Do you think there is any risk of that demographic being disenfranchised?
28:30Sophia Smith Galer:I think it's unlikely, but I am struck when I talk about this, how often the response is, your idea is obviously mad, but you have a point. There's something a bit odd about how unbalanced this is. We let the 80 pluses all vote, and we don't let the under 18s or under 16s vote. And there might be just as much competence, because they still want to think it's a competence argument, among the under 16s as among the over 80s. So the answer is obvious. There's a much less mad idea, which is to have a cutoff at 80, or sometimes people say 75, or sometimes people say 70. and I always reply just listen to yourself and tell me which is the mad idea just think about not just the practicalities but the principle of the thing and it is true across history disenfranchisement is never a good idea and also no group of people who have ever been enfranchised have wanted to give it back Simone de Beauvoir had a great argument about this in relation to women in France only enfranchised women after just at the end of the second world war and the argument in France was that classic argument, which is voting is a burden and it's difficult and it's complicated.
29:39Sophia Smith Galer:Why would anyone want it? You're women, you have lots of things to occupy you. Why would you want to add this nasty business? Trust us men. It's a responsibility. It's a heavy burden to which Simone de Beauvoir said two things. One, if you don't want to do it, we'll do it. And two, you say it's a burden, but we don't notice any of you giving it up. No one ever gives it up.
30:02David Runciman:In terms of this balancing out as well, I'm really interested in how it does tend to be more progressive, liberal leaning parties that push for the lowering of voting ages. But you're saying this wouldn't lead, in your view, to sort of gerrymandering or boosted voting for progressive parties.
30:24Sophia Smith Galer:My guess is I have no idea because we don't poll them. I've been into a Cambridge primary school, not typical. I'm aware Cambridge is not typical. It's a sort of privileged part of the country, even though this is a state school. Yeah, the kids were definitely more environmentally conscious, but partly because of the kind of education they get. They get this remorseless, relentless education. One of the things that most shocked me is they're given all of this lecturing about being good citizens. You watch videos in citizenship for six-year-olds and it's like, go out and plant a tree. go and ask your old neighbour if she needs help with her garden.
31:00Sophia Smith Galer:And I think we don't ask adults to do that and we give them the vote. You ask kids to go and plant an effing tree and you won't even let them vote on the people who are telling them to do that. They are more environmentally conscious. My guess is the green vote might go up. I don't know. But at the same time, they're quite conservative about some things. They're quite keen on law and order. They really don't like unfairness and injustice. They're quite attuned to people claiming more than they deserve. So skilful politicians, when there's a mass enfranchisement, have to work out how to appeal to the new voters.
31:33Sophia Smith Galer:And the history of this is that the fear is always the new voters are going to be irresponsible. And the small C or big C conservatives always say they're going to vote for government largesse because they don't pay tax. You know, they're going to want more suites and the parties of the right are going to lose out. when working men were enfranchised israeli a genius politician conservative politician worked out how to make the conservative party the party of working men stanley baldwin don't i think genius too strong a word successful conservative politician when women were enfranchised worked out how to make the conservative party a party that appealed to women i can completely imagine how parties of the right would find a message and then it's up to the kids it's up to the kids.
32:19David Runciman:David, those relentless videos about planting trees and being a good citizen, what on earth do you think would happen if we gave the vote to six-year-olds? How many more videos of that nature would they be forced to watch?
32:32Sophia Smith Galer:Well, the thing is, if you want children to vote for you, do not make them watch patronising videos that tell them what they have to do. The evidence is everywhere how politicians need to communicate with people to get their vote. And voting is really important. It doesn't change much. I mean, we have to remember it's only voting we're talking about here. One of the complications is when women were enfranchised, it went along with women standing for parliament. I think six-year-olds standing for parliament is, even I think, is a slightly ridiculous idea. I don't think you'd have to ban it because they just wouldn't win.
33:05Sophia Smith Galer:I mean, there's no way an adult electorate would vote for a six-year-old to represent them in parliament. So it's not going to go along with a lot of children being in parliament. but with voting the point is that the politicians have to try and think about what the people who are voting for them care about how they respond to certain kinds of messages what irritates them what angers them i think they would discover quite quickly i would look around these classrooms and see how the kids were reacting to the videos telling them to plant trees two or three bright eyed teachers pets at the front would be sitting alert but god the others looked cross i think the politicians work out quite quickly they got to take the children more seriously as people with ideas interests but also rights of their own if you're not going to be telling the adults to plant trees don't tell the kids to plant trees and expect them to vote for you do you think it's practical
33:58David Runciman:you've spoken a lot about this is about your radical idea i mean is about the process What about the impact?
34:06Sophia Smith Galer:My feeling about this is that it would be as practical as what we do anyway. I think the outcomes are very uncertain. I mean, I do need to emphasise this. I don't know what would happen.
34:17David Runciman:If you don't know what would happen, do you worry that there are any risks to this idea?
34:23Sophia Smith Galer:Yeah, I think there are always risks. I mean, the thing about any sort of serious political, constitutional, procedural reform, if it's big enough to have uncertainties associated with it, is that you can't be sure. There is a risk that politicians would be pretty unscrupulous in the way that they dealt with kids. I mean, politicians are pretty unscrupulous in the way they deal with voters. That's not a criticism of politicians. It's the incentive of the system. Votes really matter, and you will get them any way you can. I actually have a feeling, because the one group of people partly because they're disenfranchised and so we can treat them paternalistically.
35:08Sophia Smith Galer:The thing about paternalism is that we do apply it still to children. That we take seriously their protection from misinformation is children. So in the political democratic environment in which we live, adults, we are all aware misinformation, disinformation is a problem for all of us. We're in this environment saturated with unreliable sources of information. schools are almost the last places that really worry about that and you just have to spend time in a primary school to know that the teachers take really seriously let's have a bit of the day in which the children are protected and a democratic system that did more in that environment in those schools i think would take protections for all of us more seriously there might come a point at which the adults say we want to be treated like the politicians are treating the kids You're not lying to the kids.
36:00Sophia Smith Galer:So stop lying to us.
36:01David Runciman:You've said that in your lifetime you doubt you will see...
36:05Sophia Smith Galer:I'm pretty sure.
36:06David Runciman:...the enfranchisement of six-year-olds and above. So is this a serious, radical proposition for our government? Or is it an idea that you're putting out into the world to just test the reaction and sort of see what happens next? Is it actually a little more chaotic good than an actual proposal?
36:28Sophia Smith Galer:I think it's both. I think ideas can be both. It's not a serious idea for this government. I'm not lobbying think tanks to put it on Andy Burnham's desk when he's thinking about compulsory voting. He's got other things to think about first. I think it is a serious argument. So this is not just a provocation. It's not meant to be outrageous. I find it funny that people find it so funny. I also find it interesting that people think it's a dangerous idea because our politics is full of dangerous ideas. And trust me, this is not one of the dangerous ones.
37:02David Runciman:So what are you trying to achieve with it?
37:05Sophia Smith Galer:I'm trying to say it's something that we should think seriously about. I think it's a way of thinking about what we mean by universal enfranchisement and the principles that lie behind it. It's a way of making us think that our democracy probably needs a range of reforms. even if we're not going to do this let's you know makes compulsory voting sound a bit tamer doesn't it i'm not saying it's like a trojan horse to you know allow these other ideas to be snuck in you've said it now but no one takes this idea seriously but actually it is a serious idea i think the arguments behind it are serious i've actually of course there are things to be said against it and i can be persuaded by some of them but not so persuaded that i think they obviously outweigh the arguments for.
37:45Sophia Smith Galer:I think it's at worst, it's a balanced argument. The fact it's not going to happen doesn't mean it's not a serious idea worth taking seriously. Lots of serious ideas worth taking seriously were thought not to be going to happen. People were advocating votes for women for 100 years before women were given the vote. We all know there are things that are really wrong with our politics, including thinking seriously about the long-term future. And there are certain features of the long-term future that seem off the horizon for our politics, which doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them. The children, I shouldn't say the children, it sounds like a Whitney Houston song, children are the ones who are going to be living in that future.
38:28Sophia Smith Galer:It's also a way of at least raising that question. And I just don't think, I resist the thought that serious ideas, good ideas also have to be immediately practical. One of the reasons our politics is a bit shrunken is we are limited by thinking you can't do it before the next election
38:48David Runciman:what's the point in talking about it I think a lot of our listeners will have six-year-olds in their lives after listening I've had plenty well I don't want to say plenty but you know
39:00Sophia Smith Galer:I've got three kids they're now pretty grown up but I remember them when they were six
39:04David Runciman:if anyone's listening who's got children around that age and that they've just finished listening to this episode. What do you want them to take away?
39:14Sophia Smith Galer:The really important thing to say, again, just to reinforce this point, it's really interesting. This is something to do with how the human brain works. People hear votes for six-year-olds as six-year-olds are going to decide things. Somehow it's going to be about the six-year-olds. Six is just the cutoff. Enfranchising children, the majority of the children will be over 10. half of the children if you drop it from 18 to 6 will be over 12 so we're mainly talking about enfranchising teenagers here I just think you need to have a radical idea and I just want to take it down to basically school age so if you look at your six-year-old and think the thought of this young person whom I love having any say in anything that affects grown-up stuff makes me want to scream fine but you I bet you think that about some adults too I bet there are other relatives in your family, maybe some of the older ones.
40:07Sophia Smith Galer:Just remember the dynamics around Brexit. Grandparents and grandchildren not speaking to each other. Grandparents saying, we voted to leave for the sake of your children to their own children. And the parents saying, how dare you? All of that dynamic goes on anyway. Enfranchising the six-year-olds will not change anything. The six-year-old vote will not make any difference to anything. Maybe in a few marginals, but fine. randomness is good in politics anyway surprise the politicians scare them a bit enfranchising children en masse will open up democratic politics to a new set of conversations i'm not saying it'll be good for the children this is not about improving them and making them better informed i'm saying it's good for the politics and if it makes you uncomfortable does it really make you more uncomfortable that some of the things that our politicians are doing think of the thing that our politicians are doing that you most hate try and persuade the kids to vote against it they're your kids you might be able to brainwash them aha so you're going back
41:07David Runciman:to the point now where we're worrying about these kids voting by proxy well sorry their parents
41:12Sophia Smith Galer:using the children to vote by proxy so i realized you just said it i just said it and i'm saying it because it's what we do right yeah think of the last time you tried to persuade one of your friends who you cannot believe is voting green if you're on the right or reform if you're on the left whatever it is, something that you just think. We've all done it. It's very frustrating. It's no fun trying to cross that divide. But what do you try and do? You'll use emotional blackmail. You'll use whatever arguments are in your arsenal. It happens all the time. I have a feeling that because we would be more conscious of it with children, we might be a little more aware of what we're doing.
41:54Sophia Smith Galer:We might even be a little more respectful. Plus, it's your six-year-old. They don't do what you say anyway. You can't get them to eat the food that you want them to eat. Try and get them to vote for Ed Davey and see how you get on. You're more likely to persuade them to vote Restore Britain just because it'll piss you off so much.
42:11David Runciman:Yeah, I can see. It's all fine.
42:13Sophia Smith Galer:It's voting. The thing about voting is it's fine. People can do whatever they like for whatever reasons they like. It's a way of just giving people an opportunity to have a stake in the future, to express their views, particularly to express their frustration, dissatisfaction, to give a cry of pain. You know, the great democratic reform of the 19th century, Jeremy Bentham, the great utilitarian. Voting is just an opportunity to express discomfort because the politicians don't know what you hate. You've got to tell them. Kids can tell you what they hate. My God, they can tell you what they hate.
42:47David Runciman:Well, lucky for our listeners, there's even more because they've been getting in touch with us. we're going to hear all of that in our Q &A episode but for this interview we've come to an end so thank you so much for joining us David pleasure
43:07David Runciman:David's just left and I think what I'm taking from what he has said and especially how he responded to suggestions that well this feels like a proposal It feels like a theory. What's the impact it's going to have? What are the outcomes you can prove? It doesn't appear to be that David has put this forward because it's anything like that. It's a proposal that he, in his own words, has said is an attempt to shake up politics, which all too often for many voters is feeling stagnant and unchanging. ultimately I think what David is trying to get all of us thinking about a lot more is that when we think of politics and we talk about it we obsess over what politicians do or what happens during elections and actually it's more about how we do politics how we do elections how we do the democratic process
44:15David Runciman:That's it for this episode. To make sure you don't miss future conversations, you can subscribe to Radical on BBC Sounds. We'll be back on Monday with the radical questions that you put to David Ransoman, so look out for that too. And that's it from me, but there will be another episode of Radical coming very soon. Bye!
44:38David Runciman:I'm David Dimbleby, and from the History Podcast and BBC Radio 4, this is Invisible Hands, The American Century. It's the story of how, in the ashes of World War II...
44:54Sophia Smith Galer:Flash, Washington! The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
44:59David Runciman:America rose to become a global superpower. The United States, whatever our faults may be, is the hope of the world. and the Invisible Hands who made it happen.
45:12Sophia Smith Galer:He's probably the most important person nobody ever heard of.
45:18David Runciman:Listen to Invisible Hands, the American Century. First on BBC Sounds.
45:33David Runciman:Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free-range self-directed investing. Or perhaps you pick up a few farm-fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's full-service wealth management. Mix, match, and change your mind whenever you want. Because at Schwab, you can invest your way. No matter your goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. Visit schwab.com to learn more. It's been five months since the deadliest civilian strike of the U.S.-Israel war in Iran.
46:09David Runciman:120 children killed at a school. Experts say the evidence indicates it was American forces that hit the school. But the U.S. government has not admitted responsibility. I'm Asma Khaled, and I host the Global Story podcast on the BBC. The BBC has now visited the site of the school and spoken to Iranians about what they saw. For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.
From the publisher
This week, guest presenter Sophia Smith Galer speaks to David Runciman, a podcaster and former politics academic, about his radical proposition to lower the voting age to six.
It’s a position that has been met with laughter, scorn, and even anger, but he believes it’s not just in accordance with our democratic principles - it could also help give our stale and fractious democracy a much-needed shot in the arm. David talks us through the history of the arguments about suffrage (some of which have echoes now in the debate around children), his work talking to children in schools about politics and voting, and how he thinks his radical proposal could shake-up democracy.
Next week, John Burn-Murdoch talks to the conservationist Derek Gow, one of the country’s leading Rewilders, who argues that we should be reintroducing indigenous but long-vanished species to the UK countryside.
We’ll be putting your radical questions to Derek for a Q&A episode, so please get in touch.
* WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk
Episodes of Radical are released every Thursday and Monday.
Series Producer: Rufus Gray Producers: Nathan Gower, Ivana Davidovic Digital Producer: Gabriel Purcell-Davis Technical Producer: Philip Bull Senior News Editor: Sam Bonham