Lifestyle Could a raft of youthful Labour MPs make a difference in the Houses of Parliament — or are they merely toothless ‘Starmtroopers’? 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 Couse.
