This ‘gap’ matters for at least three reasons: first, there is increasing evidence of a ‘cohort effect’ in which young people do not take the participatory habit into later life; second, there is an understandable ‘policy effect’ in the sense that politicians tend to cater their policies to benefit those members of the public that are most like to vote (i.e. the older and wealthier) thereby creating a spiral of cynicism on the part of the young and the poor, therefore further depressing turnout. Finally, there is an issue about roots and meaning and citizenship and notably about political recruitment as those from the most deprived and disengaged communities feel little commitment to broader society, let alone any aspiration to ‘step into the
