Can Young Voters Trust Who They Vote For?

Now more than ever the young vote counts, as was proved in the 2010 election where the Liberal Democrats received a major increase in their usual amount of seats.

My question is can young voters make an informed accurate decision on who they’re voting for this upcoming summer? I think not, unless you want to spend time to really dig deep into the parties. For the casual voter who has little interest in politics in day to day life, they will have a couple of ways to base their decision. One will be in the live debates shown across different TV platforms. Another will be from all the speculation in newspapers about promises and policies in the upcoming months.

There is one problem with the latter option, all these papers have political allegiance. Due to papers allegiances with parties it makes it hard for a casual voter to make the decision. With the Sun tearing apart Labours new policy while the Guardian pokes at Cameron’s latest gaffe’s, who is he meant to trust? And why are they to trust these media moguls? With phone hacking and libel claims being settled weekly they print media is hardly giving a good account for itself and is creating an unstable environment for democratic politics to be in. It creates an idea of us and them rather than informing the voter of the straight up facts of each party allowing them to make an informed decision. 

The television debates don’t offer much more than the papers. They’re set up in a way that by the end you only know which politician is the best orator. When you should be finding out which is the best leader for you, this is not helpful. Nick Clegg proved in last election debates that he was a brilliant talker, especially about policies.

But what Nick Clegg proved a year later was that he was only a good talker, and not much more. The whole of Nick Clegg’s election campaign was based around the fact the Lib Dems would not let University fees increase. Which made like a vote for Lib Dem seem like a wasted vote for the younger votes come one year later when University fees had been upped to £9,000.

Ultimately, the fact our views on TV and money for the papers is more important to the media than how we vote. Unfortunately this leaves young voters in a poor position. They are ill informed and left with no real idea on who will help them. 

On that day in May when we all decide who shall keep the country ticking for the next five years, there will be a shock. A shock that the turnout is low, especially amongst younger voters. Young people are disillusioned with politics, we don’t want to hear from Labour why the Tories can’t handle the debt. we don’t want to hear from the Tories why Labour put us in this much debt.  We don't want to know what we can do for you, rather what you can do for us.