Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh has come out with some controversial recommendations for who should be allowed to vote in elections. 

According to the Welsh, who is originally from Leith, 14-year-olds should be given the vote, whilst those over the age of 55 should be banned from elections all together. 

The 59-year-old told an audience at a book festival in Brisbane, Australia: "I would stop anyone over 55 from getting a vote and lower the voting age to 14.

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"Why can someone who’s 85 stagger down to the polling booth and tell someone who’s 14, with their life ahead of them, how their life’s going to be?”

In his opinion, the older generations have to take responsibility for the world they have created as it is "pretty s**t being a young person now".

He added: "The whole debt economy has made it impossible for them to get on the property ladder, so they have to stay at home, so they’re infantilised to a degree.

Read More: Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh had a criminal record at age of EIGHT

"It’s a horrible world we’ve created where older people pity young people.”

Earlier this year it was revealed that the Scottish writer, who now lives in Miami, Florida had a criminal record from the age of eight and that his life on a housing estate in Edinburgh shaped his worldview.