The Iraq war has "put young people off" politics

I have been following the argument (mostly among left-wing commentators) that the failure of the mass demonstrations ten years ago against the Iraq war has "put young people off" politics.

Desk research produced today by Nottingham University is supposed to demonstrate:  "It is clear that the events of 2003 had virtually no effect on the perceived political effectiveness of young people" http://nottspolitics.org/2013/02/18/the-invasion-of-iraq-did-many-things-putting-young-people-off-politics-wasnt-one-of-them/

In a misleading paragraph the researcher Stuart Fox writes:  "In 2001, according to the British Election Survey just under 20% of 18–24 year olds reported having some feeling of political efficacy. By 2010, this figure had risen to 22%. The Audit of Political Engagement data shows that in 2003, 39% of young people reported some sense of political efficacy. This figure fluctuated slightly in the following 8 years, and was a slightly higher 41% by 2011."

The problem with this comparison is that the young people in 2001 are not the same young people in 2010.  All sorts of reasons could have influenced the attitudes of the 2010 young people.  Forgive me for a mischievous suggestion, but the 2001 young people could have been informed and equipped with the critical ability to see through government propaganda; whereas until the end of the Labour government in 2010 young people would have been educated in a dumbed-down environment where everything is morally relative, exam results are on an eternally upward curve, and the teaching profession is legally obliged to present positive views of extremely controversial government policies - therefore young people in 2010 had been conditioned to believe they were living in the best of all possible worlds (until they find out they are not).

Therefore we must assert that in his piece Mr Fox has failed to factor in the dumbing down of state education and the corruption of academic knowledge to support political objectives.

Mr Fox does later goes on to track the attitudes of the 2001 young people as they grow older, but this is not relevant to the charge made by Owen Jones in the Independent that the Iraq war de-radicalised young people (however Owen Jones must stop saying that the vote in the House of Commons about the war was "only passed due to the addition of Tory votes" - the Tory votes were cast on the basis of lies told by the Labour government and in any case the House of Commons vote did not affect the decision to go to war which had already been taken by the Labour Cabinet).