Most 22-year-olds spend summers toiling in low-paid jobs, wondering what to do with their lives. But not Labour’s Sam Carling, who has devoted this month to a “whirlwind” fight to become MP for North West Cambridgeshire in the general election. It’s a long shot, but if he wins he will be one of the first MPs born this century.
And he’s not the only one. Sir Keir Starmer has amassed an army of young candidates, fresh faced and ready for July 4 — with an unusually high number in their twenties and mid-thirties, and some who still live at home with their parents. Anyone born after May 1987 has never voted for a successful Labour government — and a new generation of MPs is hoping to represent them in the Commons.
Carling, who had his 22nd birthday in April, says he gets a mixed reception on the doorstep. Most people are excited to get some “fresh representation,” he says, but others are less sure. “I will sometimes speak to people who go ‘Oh, you look very young,’” he admits. But they are won over by his time as a councillor, which Carling has been doing part-time for two years, alongside research at Cambridge University — where he finished a degree in natural science last year.
Despite his tender years, Carling isn’t the youngest of this year’s Labour candidates. That seems to be 20-year-old Jacob Cousens, who is fighting for Newton Abbot in Devon, during his summer holidays from Durham University. Nearer London, Issy Waite, 21, has just finished studying at the University of Sussex, and is taking on Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch in North West Essex, having not long left a job in a pub. Elsewhere, also in Gen Z, Georgia Meadows is battling for David Cameron’s old seat of Witney at the age of 22. Waite has said: “As a young person I am very scared for my future and for the future of my generation.”
These four are the extreme of a wave of young Labour hopefuls, some of whom will be successful next month. Rishi Sunak’s snap election, combined with Labour dominance in the polls, means that more young candidates than usual look set to enter parliament. “In a landslide, all sorts of people who weren’t expected to win — that’s why they were chosen so young — suddenly do [win],” explains Michael Crick, veteran political journalist and creator of Tomorrow’s MPs, a social media account that monitors upcoming members of the Commons.
While the very youngest candidates are often selected for the harder to win seats, slightly older ones have better chances, and may even help shape politics as we know it in a Starmer government, Crick says. Keir Mather became “Baby of the House”, or youngest MP, when he won Selby and Ainsty last year at 25. He took over the mantle from Nadia Whittome, still only 27, and who is also hoping to be re-elected.
These youngsters could be joined by Rosie Wrighting, who is 26 and fighting for Kettering, and Jacob Collier, 27, who was just old enough to Vote Leave in 2016, but now regrets it. There are many others in their mid twenties: Martha O’Neil is the Labour candidate for Caerfyrddin in west Wales, while Jovan Owusu-Nepaul is taking on Nigel Farage in Clacton (and has drawn attention for his snappy fashion). Josh Dean is 24, and battling for Hertford and Stortford, while Conrad Whitcroft, 24, is fighting for Harrogate and Knaresborough. Both O’Neil and Wrighting live at home with their mums.
So what would younger MPs bring to politics? Some argue that they are simply “Starmtroopers”, who will go along with what the leader says — a theory backed up by accusations that Labour have been selecting candidates from the Right of the party. But Carling says that’s wrong, coming from a misguided idea that young people have “less willpower” than their elders to stand by their ideas.
Rather than being malleable, he says being young means that he has experience of things that older MPs don’t, particularly when it comes to housing — he is renting in Cambridge. “The private rental sector is currently causing so much trouble for so many young families,” he says. “I’m going through that — I know exactly what it’s like having insecure accommodation.” As well as housing, many younger candidates are often more radical about climate change. They also dislike high tuition fees — Labour say they will make them “fairer”, though has not offered much detail. Young people are traditionally more Left-wing, and move towards the Right as they grow older.
Another reason MPs are getting younger is that the job is becoming less attractive for older people. There is more scrutiny on second jobs and expenses, so while the salary of around £90,000 is high, it’s particularly attractive for professionals in their thirties — while the likes of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid can earn far more outside politics.
Carling has had an unusual political journey. He grew up in a deeply religious Christian family, who didn’t vote, because they didn’t think it “mattered”. But he was politicised when his sixth form college closed due to cuts, leaving many fellow students in the lurch — though he managed to ace five A-levels. Carling was eight when David Cameron’s Tory-led coalition came to power, and hasn’t known anything but Tories, but knows he wants a change.
The Tories have a clear strategy of targeting older voters this election — promising to bring back national service, protect pensions and often hitting out at “woke” culture. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, and even Labour, often seem to have a similar focus — mostly because of the UK’s ageing population, and because a higher proportion of older people vote. Carling argues that encouraging more young people to stand is a key factor in getting more young people to vote too. Some of his fellow campaigners, even younger than him, have been worried about having to do national service.
A fear of youth is a common problem in society, Carling thinks. “I think there’s a general uneasiness in society about trusting young people,” he says. “I don’t know what causes that, but I think the way to solve it is for more young people to actually stand and show that we’re just as capable as anyone else.” Crick too is positive about young candidates, arguing that talent comes through at an early age. “The thing about young candidates is a lot of them got elected so young, because they’re so bloody good,” he says. “If you’re really a talented politician, you shine at a much younger age than the mediocrities, so you tend to get selected at a much younger age… Sam Carling strikes me as having a glittering career ahead of him,” says Crick. Historically, Tony Benn, Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson and Charles Kennedy all started political careers young.
“Politics goes through phases,” says Crick, saying historically, many young MPs would have been the sons of peers spending time in the Commons for a few years as experience, before inheriting the title. Through most of the 20th century, there were quite a few young MPs. That paused in the Eighties after Lib Dem Matthew Taylor was elected in a by-election aged 24 in 1987, and remained the “baby of the House” for 10 years.
In Blair’s landslide in 1997, “a whole load of people in their twenties came in” the start of a new era, including future shadow chancellor Chris Leslie, then only 24. That happened again at the end of the New Labour era in 2010 – when the minimum age for MPs dropped from 21 to 18. When SNP star Mhairi Black was elected aged 20 in 2015, she was the youngest MP since the Great Reform Act of 1832. Both Black and Dehenna Davison, a young Tory, are standing down at this election — despite being under 30.
Being young is not entirely positive. It’s possible that inexperience makes you more gaffe prone. Think Josh Simons, in his early thirties, who has been selected for a safe Labour seat in Manchester. He made headlines after saying smuggler gangs helping migrants cross the Channel should be put on a barge, adding: “And then ship the barge up to the north of Scotland for all I care. Who cares?” Then again, older politicians have their fair share of slip ups too.
Young people are often better online and are likely to have bigger digital footprints, meaning youthful indiscretions can be called out by the media earlier on. Carling says he often has trouble online from trolls, where he does get “tons and tons of abuse” for his age, “usually from anonymous people”.
Having got into politics early on, many young candidates have connections in the party. Former Rachel Reeves adviser Heather Iqbal is contesting Dewsbury and Batley, while former Sadiq Khan aide Sarah Coombes is standing in West Bromwich West. Jake Richards is contesting Rother Valley, and is the son of political journalist Steve. A decade or so older is Liam Conlon, son of Sue Gray, Starmer’s chief of staff. Georgia Gould, is in her late thirties, and the daughter of peer and ex-Labour adviser the late Sir Philip.
But not all are as well connected, some are just keen. Praful Nargund is of a similar age, and taking on Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North, while Zarah Sultana, a rare Left-winger in Starmer’s Labour, is still only 30. While the US political system is often described as a “gerontocracy”, Crick thinks the oldest candidate this election is Liberal Democrat Gordon Birtwistle, who at 80, is still younger than Joe Biden.
With all the noise, Carling says the thing that frustrates him is when people say he doesn’t have enough “life experience” to stand for parliament. “What is life experience?” he says, pointing to his time on the board of a multi-billion pound charity. “Just because I’ve been on the earth for less years doesn’t make me any less capable.”
