DESPITE Labour grandees speaking about the undesirability of Jeremy Corbyn leading the party (the latest being David Miliband, who says the party is "unelectable and undesirable" under Mr Corbyn), the left-winger looks certain to see off Owen Smith in the leadership contest.
Mr Corbyn has the enthusiastic support of large numbers of millennials (those born between 1981 and 2000) but their number will not be enough to help him defeat Theresa May at the next General Election. They would all need to vote, for a start.
Research by the Resolution Foundation shows that baby-boomers cast four million votes more than younger millennials at last year's General Election. In 1964, when Harold Wilson won his first election, the gap in turnout between the generations was just three percentage points; by 2005 it had swollen to 26 percentage points, and it has remained near that level since then.
Small wonder that the research has caused renewed concern about a "democratic imbalance", with older voters enjoying a pronounced "ballot-box advantage" over their younger counterparts. Several reasons have been advanced as to why many millennials do not vote. If they do not have a recognisable stake in society (they do not own a home, for instance), they might be less inclined to visit the polling station. Many might be turned off by deciding there is little in any of the parties to appeal to them. That said, the fact that 100,000 16-17-year-olds registered to vote in the 2014 independence referendum shows that, sometimes, the democratic process can capture young people's imagination.
The foundation's suggestions, including online voting, making voter-registration easier and first-time compulsory voting with the option not to choose a candidate, are all eminently sensible ideas worth exploring before the democratic imbalance widens further. The foundation is right to warn that the divide has important consequences not just on policy but on our democracy, too.
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