Give young people the vote – they might do a better job

Zoe Williams (Six-year-olds voting? It’s not a crazy idea, 18 December) contends that no one “would say that a six-year-old could be capable of consent”, “or could be given responsibility for anything”. Our research has found that younger children are capable of consent, in terms of understanding what is involved, and making and being committed to a decision.

For example, some four-year-olds with type 1 diabetes can understand why they need daily injections. One told me, “Insulin is the key that turns sugar into energy”. She had been weak and ill for months before being diagnosed. She therefore deeply understood how her injections helped her, and she administered some herself.

A five-year-old told us she knew how to do her finger-prick blood test at a party, to check her blood sugar level and see if it was all right to have some cake.

Many young children are deeply responsible, sharing trust and respect with adults.
Prof Priscilla Alderson
University College London

• Yes, six-year-olds should get the vote, on condition that key stage 1 includes analysis of Daily Mail headlines and their relationship with known and provable facts. That’s unlikely, so let’s start with compulsory political education for GCSE, with a syllabus including “Why Britain Should Learn Humility”. And then votes for 16-year-olds.
Alison Leonard
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

• Clearly David Runciman, a rare modern political philosopher worth reading, is not being ironic in proposing “votes for kids” (Votes for kids ‘would give democracy a jolt’, 14 December). It is, after all, not April Fools’ Day but time for wish-lists to Santa. But does he really go far enough?

It’s all very well having a representative “democracy of demands”, but surely members of this minority should stand for election and join the government, just like women, BME people, LGBTQI people and disabled people.

Ministers drawn from our primary schools would surely make a better job than the present lot, and return national statesmanship to the serious level it achieved in the days of John Stuart Mill and William Ewart Gladstone.
David Ashton
Sheringham, Norfolk

• In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the age of criminal responsibility is 10, the youngest in Europe (and probably well beyond). As a counterweight to this shameful statistic, I would suggest that Professor Runciman pitches his suggested threshold of juvenile suffrage permissibility at the same age.
Andy Stelman
Bishops Castle, Shropshire

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