The Labour Party is paedo

I mean paedocratic, and what did you think I meant? Oh yes, that fashionable vice. But let me tell you, paedocracy is infinitely more dangerous than its naughty cognate.

That’s why socialists have always tried to draw youngsters into politics. Children are naturally destructive, and, for all their bien pensant pronouncements, socialists are mainly out to destroy.

Moreover, socialists are pagan by definition, and the young are never too far from sinking into savagery. For an artistic comment on this tendency, you could do worse than reread William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies.

This recurring theme of mine came to the fore yesterday, when Labour announced its intention to lower the voting age from 18 to 16. While lauding their self-restraint – they could have plumped for 10 or six – one can still bemoan the devastation this measure is going to wreak on our already tottering society.  

In one-man-one-vote democracies, the younger groups of voters invariably support the leftmost parties in great numbers and with unwavering loyalty. In Britain, for example, 18-year-olds are 10 times more likely to support Labour than Conservatives, and the younger you go, the greater this tendency.

That’s understandable. Since the appeal of the Left is never rational and always gonadic, it works best on people whose rational faculties are underdeveloped but whose hormones are bubbling over the top. Hence it’s easier to convince a pimply youngster than a wizened crumbly that, say, it’s possible to increase social spending and lower taxes at the same time.

It’s usually youngsters who perpetrate socialist revolutions. Lenin, for example, was known as ‘Old Man’ in the Bolshevik party that took over in 1917. He was 47, which illustrates the demographic point I’m making.

Yet even in democracies, the young prove they can be destructive – which is to say left-wing – without necessarily amusing themselves with mass murder. The ballot can be deadlier than the bullet.

A Labour frontbencher explained this intention with honesty that in some quarters may be described as unvarnished cynicism: “[This policy] has the double benefit of not costing very much to do but of helping secure a second Labour term.”

Quite. So this is a blatant power grab designed to perpetuate Labour dominance for decades to come (provided Britain survives that long, which would be by no means assured). No attempt is made to provide a bono publico rationale.

That commendable oversight was corrected by Florence Eshalomi, the shadow minister for local government, who said:

“Our elections are built on the basic principle that those who contribute to our country should have a say in how it is governed. Yet 16 and 17-year-olds are still blocked from voting in English elections. It’s time to turn the page on the eroding of our democracy and give the next generation a chance to help shape their future.”

Exactly the same arguments were made in 1969, when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. Then, however, the argument was etched with sentimentality. If 18-year-olds, the socialists were saying, are old enough to serve in the army, they are old enough to vote. That’s a specious argument of course: youngsters are allowed to play for our top football teams, but few club owners would appoint them as managers.

Yet Mrs Eshalomi outdoes her leftie ancestors, proving that there’s no limit to socialist demagogic inanity. First, I’m not sure exactly what 16-year-olds “contribute to our country”. My lifelong observation suggests they mostly contribute to their parents’ expenses or, barring that, the crime rate.

Hence, exactly the same argument can be made to defend the idea of extending franchise to six-year-olds – in fact, an Oxford professor once proposed that in all seriousness. This is called reductio ad absurdum in rhetoric, although Labour’s whole line of reasoning is absurd to begin with.

No sensible company would elevate 16-year-olds to its executive board. I’d suggest that, though sensible parents may make a show of consulting their children to boost their self-esteem, they wouldn’t let a 16-year-old affect consequential decisions. A film company may employ child actors, but not child directors.

Yet somehow those lefties are trying to convince us that a child – and 16-year-olds are children in every sense that matters – deemed too young to take part in running a company is old enough to take part in government.

That’s what voting is in a democracy. Which is why political thinkers rather more accomplished than Mrs Eshalomi, from Plato and Aristotle onwards, have always insisted on limiting the democratic element of governance and counterbalancing it with other power mechanisms.

But socialists don’t take their cue from Plato or Aristotle. Those chaps, whatever we may think of their political philosophies, sought public good.

Today’s lot are governed by ideas best encapsulated by Machiavelli and Lenin: power is all that matters, and not because power is necessary for a politician who really wants to make a difference. No, it’s not the end to which power is put. Power is its own end.

So brace yourself: when Labour gets its landslide (and the cowardly resignation of almost 80 Tory MPs guarantees it), it’ll hold on to power for a generation at least. Britons will then be looking back on the first quarter of the century as the Golden Age.

And the erstwhile teenagers, now in their forties, will be weeping and wailing “what have we done?”. Relax, ladies and gentlemen, it’s not your fault. It’s the fault of those who put you in power before you were qualified to wield it.