Three visions – but will students buy them?

by Andrew Willis, Jim O’Reilly and John Ashmore

The recent televised leaders’ debates have thrown open British electoral politics in a way that few foresaw, with the Labour-Conservative stranglehold seemingly broken mere weeks before the May 6 election. 

Audiences of up to 10 million people tuned in to watch the first debate on ITV.

The televised clash resulted in a huge poll swing towards Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, while the second debate, on Sky, was an even affair with Clegg and Conservative leader David Cameron slightly ahead of Gordon Brown in post-debate polls.

In this uncertain political climate, young people may have a decisive influence on who forms the next government. Voters aged 18-24 represent a swathe of untapped support, with as few as 25 per cent reported to be certain to vote on May 6.

The three major parties have made no secret of their desire to target the youth vote, using extensive online social networking operations to try to grab the attention of young people in Britain.

A million students do not intend to vote

At the 2005 election, results in 20-25 constituencies would have been different had students voted in similar numbers to the rest of the population, according to conservativefuture.com, the website of the Conservative party’s youth arm.

Even though some students may feel alienated from the world of politics while they are studying, decisions made by the next government could be the difference between them securing a job after graduation or languishing in the dole queue.

A recent survey conducted by student housing company UNITE questioned 1,500 students on a number of political issues.

Their statistics found that up to one million UK students did not intend on voting in the general election – just under half of the country’s student population. Only one in three could identify Gordon Brown as the leader of the Labour party, with a similar percentage unaware that David Cameron leads the Conservatives.

However, the TV debates have helped energise the campaign, with a big spike in the number of voter registrations since the ITV debate on April 15.

NUS attempts to get young people involved

Where the politicians have failed, the NUS is hoping to succeed, with a new campaign aimed at encouraging students to head for the ballot box. The organisation’s Vote for Students campaign was launched to emphasise the powerful effect the general election could have on students’ lives.

Whether their campaign has an impact on the apparent apathy of student voters remains to be seen, but there are signs around the University of the Arts that some of our students are bucking the trend of student indifference to politics.

UAL’s Student Union President Louis Hartnoll has participated in several demonstrations and protests, including the recent sit-in at LCC against course cuts.

He says he understands why students are turned off by mainstream politics: “It is hard to see how voting in governmental elections feels as if politics is being brought into the lives of citizens,” he says.

Erika Wang, an MA journalism student from Ecuador, thinks our political system compares favourably to elsewhere. Wang grew up in South America and has also lived in Taiwan.

According to Wang politics is a little more sedate here than in Taiwan. “My first memory is of bloodied members of the Legislative Yuan [Taiwan's parliament] throwing punches at each other when I was about eight years old,” she says. “After living in Taiwan between 2005 and 2009, I can’t say much has changed.”

And what does she make of the UK? “Students here take their democracy for granted,” she says.

With the tightest election for a generation in the offing, the political parties can ill afford to take the youth vote for granted.

If Britain’s young people, and especially its students, can shake off their torpor and get to the ballot box, theirs could be the voice that swings the election.