Commons clash after ‘caveman coalition’ jibe

THERESA MAY’S effective deputy told Emily Thornberry to “grow up” as the pair clashed over votes at 16 during Prime Minister’s Questions.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Ms Thornberry yesterday labelled the Conservatives and the DUP a “coalition of cavemen” for their opposition to the change, advising them to learn the lessons of 100 years ago which ultimately secured women the vote.

Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington, deputising for Mrs May during her visit to China, suggested Ms Thornberry should “ween herself off the habit of watching old versions of The Flintstones”.

He added the Youth Parliament, schools and other organisations should be saluted in getting children to take an interest in current affairs and then seek to vote at 18 onwards. Mr Lidington said: “The situation we have here with the national voting age at 18 is one that is followed by 26 of the 27 other members of the European Union, by the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

“Unless she’s going to denounce all of those countries as somehow inadequate to her own particular standards, then quite honestly I wish she ought to grow up and try and treat this subject with a greater degree of seriousness.”

Labour’s Ms Thornberry told Mr Lidington: “Why doesn’t the Minister realise the lesson that we women taught his predecessors 100 years ago – when change is right it cannot be resisted forever, and this is a change whose time has come.”