Shropshire youngsters urged not to ignore election

Two young men from Oswestry have set up a blog and social media pages – Floreat Politica – after becoming frustrated by the lack of information available to local voters.

Harry Leather, 23, and Tim Bierley, 24, have already interviewed some of the candidates standing to be the next North Shropshire MP.

The two friends have both just returned to Oswestry after working away and say they were saddened by the lack of interest in politics from young people.

"There is so little election conversation among people our age," Harry said. "It's the same in Australia were I have spent the last two years. It is so hard to get people of our age interested.

"Us youngsters are pretty terrible at exercising our democratic rights. As a result, politicians don't really care about winning us over. They know they're electorally better off seducing seventy-somethings than titillating twenty-year-olds.

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"We don't care, they don't care. We see they don't care, we care even less and the cycle starts again. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We want people to start caring, start voting and complain, loudly. Whatever you might think, politicians work for us. We particularly hope to engage youngsters, but the coverage we provide will hopefully be relevant for all and the blog is for everyone with the right to vote in North Shropshire."

Harry, from Treflach, originally studied History and has recentlyreturned from Australia, where he worked as a website and tablet producer for The Sydney Morning Herald and added a Masters degree to his CV.

Tim is a Politics and Philosophy graduate who has been teaching English in Europe.

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