As Lord Soley mentions, William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister at the age of 24. He was elected as an MP at the age of 21 and became Chancellor of the Exchequer eighteen months later. He then twice refused the premiership before accepting it in December 1783. The Tory preponderance in the Lords that existed until 1999 is largely attributable to the many peerages created during his period of office.
Pitt was not unusual, at least not in terms of parliamentary service. If anything, it was surprising that he was not elected until he was 21. Before the passage of the Parliamentary Elections Act of 1695, ‘infants’ (those who had not reached the age of 21) were disqualified from sitting in the Commons by the law of Parliament (according to Sir Edward Coke), though that did not stop some under-age Members being returned. Some of those who sat in Charles II’s Pensioner Parliament, for example, were reported to be 14 or 15 years of age. The 1695 Act placed a statutory bar on membership of those who were not yet 21. Despite this, in the period from 1734 to 1832, 81 MPs were elected who were under age, all bar one being allowed to take their seats. A notable figure among the 81 was Charles James Fox, who made his name as an outstanding debater while still formally under-age.
However, the law was enforced following the 1832 Reform Act and no one since that time has been returned to the Commons under the age of 21. Some MPs have been returned at the age of 21 (the most notable recent example being Bernadette Devlin in 1969) and under the Electoral Administration Act 2006, the qualifying age for candidature has been lowered from 21 years to 18 years – so far resulting in some councillors being elected under the age of 21, though as yet no MPs. It is presumably only a matter of time…
I was one of those who pressed for the qualifying age for candidature to be lowered. (I published an article on the subject in Public Law in 1980.) For me, the essential principle involved is one of voter choice. I think electors should be free to elect whoever they wish as their representatives. It is not for others to limit their choice.
The obvious question is who was the one MP who was prevented from sitting – and who did he offend to get targeted!
I seem to remember the future Duke of Wellington was threatened with action after his election for Trim on the grounds of his age. It seems no one cared very much to really pursue the matter.
“I was one of those who pressed for the qualifying age for candidature to be lowered. (I published an article on the subject in Public Law in 1980.) For me, the essential principle involved is one of voter choice. I think electors should be free to elect whoever they wish as their representatives. It is not for others to limit their choice.”
Of course the logic of your argument is that there should be no age limit for candidates at all – not merely a change from 21 to 18.
Croft: That is indeed a logical consequence of my argument. I’m fairly relaxed about allowing electors to select whoever they wish to represent them. There is, of course, a difference between the qualifying age for candidature and the voting age. If you lower the voting age to 16, you empower 16-year-olds; if you lower the qualifying age for candidature, you empower electors.
True, though those two things are not mutually exclusive!
I’m relaxed about both changes
I’m confused about your distinction between 16 year-olds and voters. Surely if the voting age were lowered, 16 year olds would be electors, and thus empowered.
However, why not allow anyone to stand for election at any age? I doubt that any party would select fourteen year-olds as PPCs (well… maybe The Greens), but a Youth Party running candidates for elections in local councils could certainly garner some support, if only from me.
dhb13: As Croft observes, they are not mutually exclusive. By lowering the voting age for 16, you do indeed add to the overall body of electors, but you are not empowering the complete body of (existing) electors.
I am not opposed to removing age and other barriers and letting electors choose whoever they wish. That, as Croft observes, is the logic of my argument.
“Some of those who sat in Charles II’s Pensioner Parliament, for example, were reported to be 14 or 15 years of age”.
My own forebear and that of one of the mods of the board, being elected for a short while at the age of 21 in about 1620, in the time of Charles 1st; James Howell.
“electors should be free to elect whoever they wish as their representatives. It is not for others to limit their choice.”
But not dogs, and over 16.
Gareth Howell: I wish I could trace my family tree that far back.
Well statistics tell us we can pretty much all guarantee we can trace ourselves back to Edward I or William I or similar due to the exponential nature of generational ascent -v the actual number of living persons at each time period.
Croft: Indeed, but it’s getting the details that is the problem. Even if I am related to Speaker Sir Fletcher Norton (renowned for not being a very nice person) I suspect it is an extremely distant relationship! He’s the only prominent Norton I know (in political history that is).
With the recent fuss over MPs who have made a career out of being in politics and never held a “real job”, can you imagine the fuss if someone barely out of school was elected today?
IanVisits: It would doubtless generate comment, though the crucial point is that they are elected. Whether or not they would get selected in the first place is another matter.
You make an interesting point about career politicians, people who, in Max Weber’s phrase, ‘live for politics’. Anyone elected extremely young could be in Parliament for a rather long time. The current Father of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell, was first elected in 1959, when he was aged 29. If he had been elected at the age of, say, 20 (in the 1950 election)…
Ian: If you buy into the argument that seems to have become a political article of faith – that we can only be represented properly if parliament matches the populations gender/ethnicity etc – then those under 30 are the most unrepresented group in parliament – far more so than usually mentioned groups. Which perhaps explains why parliament is so absolutely useless at technology issues!
For heaven’s sake, Croft, don’t mention faith.
My family is fairly easy to Trace, being that I descended from the Stuarts. I wonder if anyone would support me being put on the Throne? I’ll wait till the current Queen dies of course…
…That said, I don’t agree on lowering the Candidature. I can see the argument of letting the Voters pick who they want but, I do want the people who stand or office to be mature, if not competent. ( I really distrust Politicians.)
I don’t see lowering the age to be of any benefit. Least of all these days. In the past 15 would have been working in the real world already, but today’s 15 year olds wouldn’t even know how to manage a paycheck from a fast food restaurant and are too preoccupied with Ipods and Video games an who the latest singer is, and wouldn’t really be good statesmen. I don’t see it as feasible anyway as who would elect someone so young in today’s environment?
I mean, I am a Libertarian, and have states such in the past, but I do draw limits in some places.
Zarove: I know some Stuarts, so there may be competition.
Should it not be for electors to determine who they regard as mature or competent? It may be that most 16-year-olds are not mature or competent (which is more of a salient argument in respect of the voting age), but there may well be exceptions – why should not electors determine if they wish to select them? Then again, why should electors not elect an immature candidate (16-year-old or not) if they want to?
As a teenager, I was encouraged to stand for local council elections but, even then, realised that there was some way to go before elected women would be treated seriously.
To be completely fair, I was uncomfortable in having to sign up to one party’s future vision – hanging was a deal breaker for me.
But I’d make a good King, Honest!
That out of the way, choice is for property owners, and I don’t mean just Land. My Philosophy has always been the same as Saint King Charles the First in regard to his Speech before Parliament which didn’t end well for him. People prefer Freedom over their lives and Property, and not necessarily over Government, of which really they have no say even in Democracy. Its 51% rule, not truly General Public Consensus.
That’s why I’ve always thought it a mistake to Remove the Hereditary Peers. They have a much stringer claim to Legitimacy, except nowadays we accept Democracy as the only Legitimate form of Government, because they owned the Seats.
As to Representatives in the Commons perhaps your right but, I’d still much rather protect society and he world from general stupidity by setting some reasonable limit son who should and should not be a Lawmaker, while giving them unfettered rights over their property and lifestyles, than to have a duly elected Government run by the incompetent and the immature, which denies them any rights over how they live their lives and compels them to do business with certain people or not to with others. I just think that elected officials today look too much into how much they can reengineer society, and imagining a Teenager at the Helm doesn’t exactly inspire me, nor does the prospect of a particularly uninformed populace being energised by youthful exuberance to elect someone who just can’t cut it.
Aristotle said that Democracy leads to people who are skilled at campaigning, but not leading, taking the chief offices of the Land. He also said Monarchy was the only form of Government that was established for the Justice of all.
But he’s old and we think we’ve learned to do without is Wisdom.
I just think it best to set some limits on Government and who can be admitted, and to then erase the limits we place needlessly on Society.
(P1) Lord Norton is a politician;
(P2 All politicians avoid applying the three good-communication, true-factuality, and clear-reasoning principles of Clarity Charity, and Self-Correction preparedness to their own communication with The People.
(Conclusion) Lord Norton avoids the three principles of good-communication, true-factuality, and clear-reasoning when he is communicating with the public and The People.
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Lord Norton preaches, as a foregone conclusion,
(and preaches repeatedly so, rather like the red marginal note to a sermon-from-the-pulpit: “This is a Weak point: lean forward, stand tall, and raise voice loud and clear”)
that the principal Governance-Source of knowledge, know-how, expertise, wisdom, judicial-deliberation, value-scrutiny, financial-auditing, and decision-making, has to be The Voter.
What puerile blindness !
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Democracy indeed needs to mature, but into voting for needs, hows and affordable-costs, i.e. for primarily for Plans not primarily for Parliamentarians.
We The People should learn how to communicate the natural and civilisational Facts and Problems of Life.
We should NOT merely go on learning how to swallow such sugar-coated pseudo-democratic placebo-pills as Lord Norton’s, in this blog about “Voter-Empowerment” being the best essential for perpetuation of “democracy” namely plump-parliamentarian-trickster-careers by fumbling so-called “peoples-representatives”.
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“The young ones, the older ones, and the vested-ones versus the wise, the knowledgeable and the know-how ones” should have been the title of this blog.
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LN: As an academic you’re in the business of filling empty heads. At what point do you consider a head full enough to become an effective politician. I put it to you that academic heads once filled empty themselves because the subject matter is not used. Only life experience has the power of retention. The unreliability of common sense is always going to be your nemesis as you cannot teach it. Therefore academia now supersedes common sense in all things and the effect is plain to see.
Senex: I assist people in developing the capacity to reach their own conclusions, though some develop that capacity early on and others much later (or not at all!). Some young people may be immature and have no great experience of life, but that can be true of others who are much older who have not really been able to make sense of the experience they have had. The point to bear in mind is that lowering the qualifying age in practice only enables young people to put themselves forward for selection as candidates. If they are exceptional, they may get selected (and then elected, or not); if they are not, they may not get selected.
Professor Norton, the one hting I have learned in Academia, and in most spheres of life, that has been confirmed to me in my Psycological studies over the years in regards to teaching is that the Teacher nearly always brigns his own Biases to the classroom. This is why it is often advised to have a Multitude of Counsilors or teachers rather than just one.
For if you beleive in somehign stongly, you will, even unintentionally, impart that as fact upon the unsuspectign students.
This proccess of teahign we have naturlaly guides STudents to ocnclusions mroe readily than it let them arrive at their own.
The only way to avoid this is tobe like me, and deply cynical and depressing so that things matter far too little, and I don’t reccomend that. It snot for everyone, as you can tell.
So how does one “Let others come to their own conclusions” when the ocnclusiosn they reach vuiolate what you’d prefer them to beleive?
Zarove: My students variously come to conclusions which differ from my own. I assess them on how they get to the conclusion and not on the conclusion itself.
“I think electors should be free to elect whoever they wish as their representatives. It is not for others to limit their choice.”
How far does this extend? Should the State impose any limits (and not only on the issue of age)? For example should the State intervene or should it be for the electors to decide whether they want to elect tax exiles, non-residents, foreign citizens and, God forbid, Lords?
Teithiwr: Electors should be free to choose who they wish to sit in the House of Commons to determine such matters.
Let there be three major strata of Paticipation in British Democracy:
1. Children;
2. Adults;
3. Governance-personnel (incl some Experts)
all three being detail-organised and administered by the Civil Service.
The really-fundamental but still denied and repressed function that Democracy desperately needs, is a constitutionally-primary “Universal Needs, Hows, and Affordable-Costings” instrument, listed and signed up-to-date by every individual citizen. Each citizen prepares his/her own list of his/her Needs.
We as the Peoples of this democratic British Nation should have long ago been enabled-and-empowered to be Participatorily and Cooperatively figuring-out our own various Needs, Hows, and possible affordable-costings thereof; submitted safely upwards to Government by every able citizen.
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Working upon the basis that every individual is capable of reporting his/her needs to government
(or somehow showing their needs, albeit for some only with the help of carers, advocates, or attorney-powers)
then this essential democratic-task could very speedily start resulting in ‘master-lists’ becoming publishable as a help for each individual to compile a list of his/her own Needs.
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That such a new democratic, constitutional, and legislated “Peoples’ Life-Costs Submissions” enablement, could essentially inform and guide Government, the Professions, and various Marketplaces, into more Sustain-worthy and Cost-effective strategies, outstandingly for “saving-the-human-race, by saving-the-planet, and vice versa”, is surely strongly self-evident.
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PS This proposed basic democratic listing, of one’s life-essentials, needs to be much more seriously and comprehensively executed, organised, and administered, than weekly scratched-up shopping-lists or letters to Santa just before Christmas.
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