When Votes at 12 Campaign was launched on social media, it took a while for people to realise it was a spoof.

Political activist Tom Harwood’s headline-grabbing satire used just the same soporific clichés to make the case for a ludicrously low voting age as those trotted out by an ever-greater number of adult politicians declaring votes for 16-year-olds will reinvigorate democracy. Its key argument about being a ‘campaign dedicated to extending the franchise to those who will be most affected by the decisions politicians make today – our children’ – echoes exactly the fashion for engaging ‘yoof’ by fawning sectional sycophancy.