You won't lure young people into politics with 'Rock Enrol It has been a good week for the nanny state. While Jamie Oliver had a grump about big TVs and fast food, a think tank announced that people should be forced to vote, frogmarched to the polling stations, and manacled to the booth while reluctantly marking the ballot paper. Or something like that, anyway. What the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), the think tank in question, is really suggesting in a report to be published next month is that young people should be required to vote the first time they're eligible to do so, or face a fine. It may sound a bit nannyish, but the IPPR sees it as a blend of big state and nudge theory that could solve the declining turnout among the younger generation. The problem is indeed serious. Research by the Hansard Society this year found only 12 per cent of young people are certain to vote in 2015. In 1970, the gap in turnout rates between 18 to 24- year-olds and over 65s was only 18 points. But by 2005 this had doubled to more than 40 points. It dropped a little - to 32 - in 2010, perhaps because this was a more exciting race. But the trend is clear. There is another obstacle to voting beyond apathy: the problem of registering to vote. For 17 to 18-year-olds, the registration rate is 55 per cent, and for 19 to 24-year-olds, it is 56 per cent. Ministers are trying their best on this and are publishing a lesson plan called "Rock Enrol." It is a useful resource for teachers, but like many government-backed publications aimed at da yoof, it is a bit naff, even featuring a graphic of a hand forming the "devil's horn" gesture with a festival armband saying "enrolled." Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith was one of the few teenagers who did find politics interesting. She set up a youth forum in her area when she was 16 because she was fed up with the local bus service. Tory party membership followed soon after. She spent this summer hunting for bright and clever ideas from community groups on how to encourage youngsters to register. Successful bids will receive funding from a £4.2 million pot. But Miss Smith knows there is only so much government can do. Meanwhile, the problem with compulsion is that it takes the heat off the very people responsible for the decline in turnout in the first place: politicians. Young people aren't lazy, they just need an incentive to do something. Maths teachers who have spent years trying to explain to a bunch of bored 16-year-olds why they need to learn quadratic equations know how difficult it is to make teenagers do anything when there isn't clear motivation. When teenagers go shopping, they see the point in walking into certain shops that sell the clothes they like and can afford to buy. But they don't see the point in voting because the political parties aren't bothering to sell them attractive policies. The IPPR suggests a "none of the above" option on the ballot paper, which would mean no one is forced to back any party, or spoil their ballot papers. This would solve the problem that Australia, which has fully compulsory voting, suffers from: 6 per cent of Australian ballot papers are spoiled, and voters opting to pay their small fines for not voting keep the turnout in the low eighties. But unless the political parties see young people as an untapped market that they should try harder to attract, "none of the above" could end up being a rather popular political figure. The whole experience would be like being shepherded into a shop only to find there is nothing you want to buy: a savvy young voter would hardly be inclined to return. Even a modest compulsory voting policy would create not so much a nanny but a stablehand state: one in which voters are led to the polling booths with no reason to vote. The IPPR's idea might be radical, but what would be even more radical would be if parties started viewing young voters as a market they should target, not ignore.