Mark Andrews: Prime Minister targets the Inbetweeners vote, Diane puts her foot in it, and 'protected characteristics' for the armed forces
Mark Andrews takes a wry look at the week's news
After u-turning on winter-fuel payments, ripping up his tax pledges, and kicking his welfare cuts into the long grass, the Prime Minister has finally found a hill he is prepared to die on.
Come what may, black hole or no black hole, he is going to give the vote to the Inbetweeners at the next election.
I suppose the logic is that having alienated the elderly, the disabled, farmers, landlords and employers, he reckons his best hope of being re-elected is to get the kids on board, who will presumably vote for whoever Andrew Tate tells them to.
I'm not convinced, though, that Sir Keir's brand of dour realism will really be Jay and Neil's cup of tea. Young people don't tend to like incumbency: they prefer idealistic dreamers who make fanciful promises, paid for with somebody else's money of course.
Five extra seats for the Green Party then.
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The Prime Minister's argument for giving 16-year-olds the vote is the old cliche, 'they are old enough to go out to work, they are old enough to pay taxes'.
They may well be old enough to do both of those things, but very few of them actually do. According to the Government's own figures, 87.9 per cent of 16-year-olds are in full-time education, as are 78.4 per cent of 17-year-olds.
