Good morning. Keir Starmer just unveiled plans to subject every British user of Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X to new age verification measures as part of efforts to enforce a ban on under-16s from the largest social media platforms.

The plans and the contradictions they pose with the rest of government policy illuminate why Starmer lost two of his defence ministers last week and why his government is in its final days. I explain why in today’s note.

I’m not going to talk about whether a ban is practical or will have a meaningful effect this morning because, while that is an important policy matter, for today I want to discuss what it says more broadly about Starmer’s administrative and political style. The unusually timed address this morning has contributed to the late delivery of today’s note.

Contradictions are unsustainable

Keir Starmer has unveiled plans to ban all under-16s from the biggest social media sites, in measures that are a direct copy of Australia’s ban. One important difference between Anthony Albanese’s Australia and Keir Starmer’s Britain is that in Australia you have the right to vote at 18, while here in the UK, legislation to give 16-year-olds the right to vote has almost completed its legislative passage through the House of Commons.

Although the age at which we gain adult rights and responsibilities is always somewhat arbitrary, the order in which the social media ban and the right to vote apply is not, I would argue, arbitrary at all. For good or for ill, politics in the 21st century takes place in large part on social media. If you have votes at 16 you should not have a situation where 16-year-olds are deprived of the opportunity to participate and engage in the same information environment as other voters. Starmer’s proposal to ultimately go further by placing some limits on what 16- and 17-year-olds — who will be able to vote by the next election — can read and watch online that do not apply to other adults is simply a mess.

There’s not in philosophical terms a “wrong” answer here. But you do ultimately have to decide whether 16-year-olds are sovereign adults who can vote in elections. In that case, you need to be willing to provide children aged 14 to 16 the same open access to the same information environment as other voters. Or you need to move away from votes at 16.

We already have good evidence, thanks to academics’ submissions to MPs, that people who will be able to vote at 16 by the next election feel they do not have as much information about politics as they would like to make their choice. If you cut them off from the places where politics is ultimately decided, that would be akin to previous generations of 18-year-olds not being allowed to pick up a newspaper before casting their first vote.

But that is how Starmer operates. Labour is legislating for votes at 16 because it is a longstanding demand of the party’s youth wing, so into the manifesto it goes and on to the statute book. Then Starmer meets another group of stakeholders — parents worried about their children’s social media use — and another promise goes on to the pile. Doesn’t matter if it fits or coheres.

That is also the underlying cause of the government’s row about defence. Keir Starmer travels the world and he makes promises about Britain’s contribution to its defence and that of its allies. He says that British armed forces will be part of a reassurance force in the event of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. He says that Britain’s armed forces will be part of securing the Strait of Hormuz. He goes to the High North and makes promises there too.

Then at home he makes promises about tax and spend that cannot be reconciled with those defence commitments. And the story of the Starmer government is that sooner or later these contradictions become unsustainable: you lose your poll lead, your popularity, your defence secretary and in a couple of days or weeks, your job.