Melissa explains it all
Melissa Suffield is an actress in Eastenders. Despite the fact the programme is made less than a mile from where I live, I never watch it. It’s only through osmosis that I know her character is Ian Beale’s daughter, Lucy.
On Tuesday night BBC Three aired a documentary, as part of their adult season, looking at the issue of lowering the voting age to 16. It was an authored piece by Melissa, who is 16 herself. If it was a requirement of contract agreement, she did an excellent job of appearing genuinely interested in the issue. In actual fact, it was pretty obvious that she was bothered about politics, and as one caller to a radio show that featured on the programme said “when you give up playing Lucy Beale, you’ve got a good job ahead of you as a political reporter.” (Good news, given her Eastenders profile lists political journalism as her future career ambition).
The set-up for the programme was that she had four weeks to find out about the issues around votes at 16. This involved extensive travelling around the UK, and the Isle of Man, in order to investigate whether the voting age should be lowered. It would have been all too easy to fall into the trap of mixing a few celebrities with a few opinionated teenagers, but refreshingly the programme steered clear of all the usual suspects. And along the way it tackled issues as diverse as volunteering, young carers, the BNP and citizenship ceremonies.
Being television there has to be some “visuals” to make the documentary more than just talking heads, and apart from a couple of silly costumes and a slightly pointless meeting of 30+ young people in Trafalgar Square, the programme was light on the fluff and actually allowed the interviewees to do the talking. Among the more poignant moments was the 17-year-old young carer, who had to look after her autistic(?) brother, who despite Melissa’s observation that she was one of the most mature 17-year-olds she knew, said she didn’t think she was old enough to vote. That reminded me of BYC chair Emily Beardsmore’s assertion that the very fact young people think that way is a demonstration of their maturity.
In fact her’s (apologies, I haven’t got names as iPlayer isn’t working very well on my computer) and a child psychologist’s were lone voices against the lowering of the voting age. There was a good sequence in the Isle of Man, the first country in Europe to have lowered the voting age, that offered some proof that young people would take their responsibility seriously. Asked whether there was a risk young people would vote because they liked the name or the colour of a party rather than its policies, the Speaker of the House of Keys (IoM’s parliament) pointed out that plenty of people in the UK voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party. And they were all over 18.
If I had a few criticisms of the programme they were that it focused on national politics, and didn’t look at devolved or local governments (who’s decisions tend to have far more of an effect on 16-17 year olds), and that in an effort to show that people were apathetic about politics asked the question “How many parliamentary constituencies are there?” Yes it was depressing that most people guessed numbers under 100, but actually not knowing what a constituency is doesn’t mean you are apathetic towards politics. (Being a political geek that I am, I can tell you there are currently 646).
The most interesting bits were the two sequences filmed inside a polling booth, at the recent European elections. The first was recorded on a mobile phone by a Brazilian woman who had just got her British nationality, and therefore was voting for the first time. The second was Melissa and her mum (who had decided to let Melissa choose who she should vote for). Both times, and I’m guessing this was just coincidence and not a very clever bit of electioneering, the party that was chosen was the Liberal Democrats. Moreover, I always thought it was an offence (with a custodial punishment) under the Representation of the People Act to communicate how someone voted.
Which, given that overall I thought it was a good piece of television, did leave me wondering whether it would go the way of another great BBC Three documentary, Tower Block Dreams. That programme fell foul of the 1949 Wireless Telegraphy Act that prohibits any promotion of illegal radio services; meaning that whilst it is perfectly legal to interview a terrorist, you risk being thrown into jail if you do a programme about pirate radio. As a result, the series will never be screened again.
I hope that isn’t true of this programme. And that this isn’t the last time we see Melissa the political journalist.
Photo courtesy of David Spender. Used under licence.
Tags:16: too young to vote, bbc three, bnp, citizenship ceremonies, eastenders, emily beardsmore, house of keys, ian beale, isle of man, lucy beale, melissa suffield, monster raving looney party, parliamentary constituencies, representation of the people act, tower block dreams, trafalgar square, volunteering, votes at 16, wireless telegraphy act, young carers