By Eddie Barnes
THE John Smith Centre ran a focus group of young people on Wednesday evening, a few hours after the full details of Peter Mandelson’s dealings with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had been revealed.
Those revelations will have damaged the weak bonds of trust that exist between politicians and the public still further. What did our panel of 16-29-year-olds make of this latest abuse of power?
One female student declared: “It kind of makes you think: if he’s doing it and he’s in the House of Lords, what are the rest of them like? Obviously, there are always going to be some rotten apples but can you trust them?”
“It made me feel icky”, said a 29-year-old man. “I like to think it’s not the majority and I like to think there’s good people out there and you see it in some people and not in others.”
That was the optimistic view: that Mandelson is the exception, not the rule. Others, however, disagreed, believing the case to be symptomatic of a bent political system. .
Another female student declared: “I wasn’t surprised that something like that would come up because there’s always so much corruption in some form or another.”
“I’m just like – ‘how are we allowing these people to run our country?’ Their morals are just not there. We have however many million girls of that age living in this country and this guy is passing motions on abortion and age of consent – I don’t even really know the words.”
Another woman in her 20s continued: “How many other people will [the Epstein files] uncover?…How many cover it up and allow it go on? It is disgusting. The politicians at the highest level in this country – their morals are not aligned. They are the ones setting the laws for young women and young people and how unsafe we are in their hands.”
Another young female student concluded: “It reminded me of the whole scandal of the Tory party in Covid and [Angela] Rayner and her house. What is going on? How are they allowed to get away with it…It’s not fair.”
In summary, while some ascribed to the “bad apple” view, a majority of those in the group felt that Mandelson’s behaviour spoke to our wider political culture – one that, inexplicably in their eyes, allowed men like the former Labour peer to hold a sway on important matters of life and death.
The most damning comment – “I wasn’t surprised”- spoke to the cynicism and distrust that appears to be rife across the wider population. Only last year, a More in Common poll found that 87% of Britons either have not very much or no trust at all in politicians. “The distrust extends beyond healthy scepticism to deep-seated contempt for a political class seen as self-serving and out of touch,” the report found.
That sentiment was also observable in our own UK Youth Poll. 63% of 16-29-year-olds said they agreed that democracy was in trouble. Meanwhile, in interviews we held last year, a clear majority said they had negative feelings towards our democratic institutions. “Messy, difficult to navigate, a shit show,” said one. There was strong support for a radical reset of the way politics works.
The young people in our focus group this week were holding out hope for a better Britain, but they are fast losing faith in ever seeing it. The Mandelson affair has weakened that belief still further. A renewed commitment to the values of honest public service is required if these young people are to be persuaded to find heart again.
