Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - July 2009

Generation Crunch

IN the wake of the European elections last month, I have been thinking about the way elections are currently regarded by young people. Until now I have had to vote via post as I have been away at university, so my first vote at the ballot box was an interesting experience for me.

As I arrived at the Kirkwall polling station, I expected to find the St Magnus Centre busy with folk queuing up in their lunch hour to mark their ballot, but it seemed that very few people were interested in the election at all. There was not a single young person there other than myself. In fact, the only people I did see voting were at least 60 years old.

I believe there are a number of issues responsible for poor turn out and a general apathy towards democracy. The first is that politics is regarded by most of my generation as boring, ineffectual and neither interesting or important. The second is the actual method used to cast and collect votes.

The antiquated system of putting an 'X' on a ballot paper at a polling booth has been the same since before women first got the right to vote in 1928. We now live in a society where millions of people vote every week on comparatively trivial issues like Susan Boyle's singing success and who gets evicted from the Big Brother house. Meanwhile we still have this old fashioned, cumbersome and inconvenient system for deciding the far more serious issues of who runs our country and what part we play in Europe etc.

I believe the Government needs to realise that if turnout is to improve, (it was just 26% in Orkney for the recent European elections) and if young people are to get interested in politics, they need to do something fairly radical, and do it soon. I suggest that people should be able to vote online by logging onto a Government website and using their national insurance number or some other individual code to cast their vote.

I'm not suggesting polling stations should be done away with just yet, but it seems obvious that the system needs modernising. If people can safely use the internet for banking, shopping and booking flights, I simply will not accept that online voting is not a safe and credible option. Perhaps investment in new voting methods would be more worthwhile than ID cards?

As a fan of the Apprentice, I'm pleased to see that Sir Alan Sugar has taken up a position in the House of Lords. However, I am a little concerned that if politicians feel the need to share power with celebrities as a way of boosting national interest in their policies then we have problems as a nation. I believe that people should care about what is going on, who's in charge and what decisions are being made without the need for celebrity endorsement.
I think Sir Alan makes excellent TV and he clearly has a great business acumen that may well help guide the country through the recession. However, it could be the beginning of a slippery slope. Imagine if the BBC Parliament channel began to look more like an episode of the Britain's Got Talent with celebrity judges hitting their 'X' buttons when MPs make poor decisions, or Sir Alan pointing his firing finger at one MP a week for filing dodgy expenses claims.

I don't think anyone would argue that it wouldn't make great entertainment, but something along those lines could trivialise politics. I would however like to see some changes in the way all Government bodies present themselves to encourage young people to take a greater interest, and feel more part of the decision making process.

I was alarmed to read in a national paper last week that the 'class of 2009' graduates are probably in the worst financial and employment position of any year of graduates before us. One in six young people dubbed the 'generation crunch' face unemployment. In the 16 to 25 year age bracket, 18.3% are unemployed - that's the highest rate for 15 years.

I still believe that people with talent, skills and a real desire to work will find a job but with the employment climate looking so dire, it's incredibly likely that many young people will find themselves out of work at some point. One of the biggest issues with this is not simply the lack of money and the inevitable damage unemployment does to a persons moral, but that employers much prefer to hire people who already have a job, as opposed to taking on people who might be on the dole or living from the 'bank of mum and dad'.

I am incredibly fortunate to have full-time work at Radio Orkney, especially because I love the job. However, I don't think the Government is doing enough to help graduates and young people to find work or training. It's perhaps only a small blessing to those with almost £20,000 of debt, but at least we don't have to begin paying our loans back until we start earning over £15,000 a year. For many graduates and other young people, myself included, that day may be some way off.

For the last week, I have been down in Exeter and Bristol seeing family. I have two sets of twin cousins who are only a month different in age to me and they celebrated their 21st birthdays with a couple of parties - one in each city.

Although going south so soon after getting back from uni was a bit of a drag, I think it is really important that my cousins and I see as much of each other as we can, especially at special events like birthdays. The parents in the family have always made a lot of effort to get us all together at least once a year and consequently we all get on extremely well.

Although it was an expensive trip for me, I think it was definitely worth the effort and I hope we all keep making it. Cheerio.