GENERAL election candidates are not paying enough attention to young people according to politics students at Dudley Sixth.

A-level students at the Ednam Road campus met up with the Local Democracy Reporting Service to share their views on the election campaign and what they think of the current crop of Britain’s politicians.

The group of 17 and 18-year-olds included several first-time voters but they feel the campaign is too focused on party leaders and personality politics.

Student Millie said: “It has definitely got too presidential and that showed in the first TV debate with Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak.

“Especially in the closing statement, Rishi Sunak looked at the camera and was like ‘on July 4 either me or Keir Starmer are going to be Prime Minister’ and while that is very likely it is quite short sighted to say.

“The way they are doing the election and how personal it feels, I don’t think many people like it. We are voting for the party, not necessarily the leader – the leader can change at any point.”

Classmate Erika says the focus on the leaders means candidates are not doing enough to show voters who they are.

Erika said: “A lot of people are looking on social media and deciding on the party and not voting on the MP,  it doesn’t matter what party they are in if they are not going to make the right changes for your constituency.

“I’ve emailed all the candidates in my area to try and find out some more information, the only party that responded to me was Reform.”

Perhaps surprisingly the group was not in favour of lowering the voting age to 16 unless it came with more education in schools. 

Another Millie in the class said: “I don’t think teaching in high school goes beyond British values, it doesn’t necessarily touch on the actual political systems.

“I think it would be important to increase that level of education otherwise you are going to have a bunch of people fresh out of high school completely uninformed on any politics, able to vote and it is very easy to be influenced, especially on social media.”

The group also has concerns about how people can differentiate between fact and fake news on social media.

Nathan said: “I think it is really easy to be fooled, you look at a comment and the like count could easily have been botted (faked electronically) and you could think ‘this is popular’ and a lot of responsible voters are switching their vote – it could subconsciously influence you.”

Confidence about the future is also in short supply among the students especially with the prospect of piling up debts at university.

Joel has the cost of housing on his mind, he said: “In the next five or ten years probably all of us will be looking at moving out. 

“The housing crisis at the moment hasn’t helped us, rents are unaffordable for most people and if you want to see economic change you need to see those prices going down to give people more disposable income, I think that is the root of most of the problems.”

Armaan added: “I don’t have enough confidence in the future because of the deteriorating healthcare system, it’s hard for us to get GP appointments.

“The upcoming generation will not have a good healthcare system which might lead to bigger problems in society.”