The Gen Z politicians making their way to parliament
In a parliament full of fresh faces, none are more energised than the members of generation Z who are taking up their seats this week.
It marks a coming of age for the cohort born between about 1995 and 2012, and who are now no older than 29. Their numbers have risen from two before the election to 10. All but one were elected to sit on the Labour benches, including the first three MPs born in the 21st century.
Many of this group started out as keen student politicians; more than a few will be proud Swifties (like the Labour leader, Keir Starmer). Some of their social media profiles still feature their achievements from school, including EPQs and Duke of Edinburgh awards.
Sam Carling, 22 North West Cambridgeshire
Carling becomes Baby of the House after ousting the veteran Conservative MP Shailesh Vara by 39 votes. He grew up in the north-east of England and went to a private school in County Durham before moving to Cambridge for university, where he was active in student politics. A self-declared “serial multitasker”, Carling was studying for a master’s degree in pathology and campaigning for the election at the same time. Batting away comments about his age, he told the BBC: “As far as I’m concerned we’re just the same as anyone else. I just want to get on with the job.”
Josh Dean, 24 Hertford and Stortford
Dean overturned a Tory majority of nearly 20,000 to win his
Hertfordshire constituency, one of a swath of southern commuter seats to turn red. He went to a grammar school in Hertford and is due to graduate with a degree in politics and international relations from the University of Westminster. In 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, Dean set up Stortford Against Rhodes, which successfully campaigned to change the name of the Rhodes Birthplace Trust. The museum and arts complex in Bishop’s Stortford, which includes the house where the colonialist and mining magnate Cecil Rhodes was born, is now known as South Mill Arts.
Euan Stainbank, 24 Falkirk
The youngest candidate to stand for election in Scotland, Stainbank tripled the number of Labour votes and overturned a 15,000
SNP majority to win the seat. He entered politics two years ago as a councillor in Falkirk after graduating with a degree in law from the University of Stirling and working stints in hospitality as a student. According to the Herald, at university he was president of the Law Society and co-founded the Stirling Students Tenants’ Union, which helped international students with accommodation issues during the pandemic.
Joshua Reynolds, 25 Maidenhead
In a particularly crushing blow to the Tories, Theresa May’s former constituency fell to the Liberal Democrats’ 25-year-old candidate on election night. Reynolds went to a local comprehensive and studied business and management studies at Cardiff Metropolitan University, where he wrote his dissertation
on the future of the high street. He rose to manage a chain of supermarkets in the south-east.
Keir Mather, 26 Selby
Mather was thrust into the spotlight when he overturned a 20,000 Conservative majority to win the Selby and Ainsty byelection last July. Aged just 25, his win made him Baby of the House and was taken as evidence that Labour was on track to win a landslide. The former Oxford history and politics student – who like Starmer was named after Labour’s founder Keir Hardie – was re-elected last week in the modified constituency of Selby with a majority of 10,000.
Rosie Wrighting, 26 Kettering
Wrighting overturned a Tory majority of nearly 17,000 when she won her battleground Northamptonshire constituency, which Starmer visited several times during the campaign. Before entering politics she pursued a career in retail, and lives at home with her mum, Cindy Wrighting, a single parent and chief executive of the local charity Youth Works. Like Starmer she is a Swiftie – she told the Telegraph last month her go-to karaoke song was Taylor Swift’s I Can Do It With a Broken Heart. She is a keen figure skater and her fantasy dinner party would be with Beyoncé, Michelle Obama and the UK’s first ever female cabinet minister, Margaret Bondfield.
Jacob Collier, 27 Burton and Uttoxeter
Collier overturned a 15,000 Conservative majority in a West Midlands constituency that had not voted Labour since the Blair and
Brown years. He studied history and politics at the University of Nottingham, where he specialised in British political history since 1945 and was involved with the students’ union. Before entering politics he pursued a career in communications and worked for Thera, a group of companies supporting people with learning disabilities, and the Nottinghamshire fire and rescue service.
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Nadia Whittome, 27 Nottingham East
Whittome is practically a veteran in the gen Z cohort – she is about to serve her second parliamentary term, having been first elected aged 23 in 2019, which made her the then Baby of the House. During her first term, she gave away about half her salary to Nottingham charities and has pledged to do so for as long as she’s in parliament. She has positioned herself on the left of the parliamentary Labour party and has been outspoken on the cost of living, the climate crisis and carers.
Lloyd Hatton, 28 South Dorset
Hatton overturned a 17,000 majority to unseat Richard Drax with a margin of 1,000 votes, in a seat Labour had not expected to win. Born and raised in Weymouth, he has lived in London for the past four years and divided his time between Dorset and Camden, where he has been a councillor. Before becoming an MP he worked as a political researcher and has also been involved in political campaigning in the US.
Luke Charters, 28 York Outer
Charters won York Outer off the Tories on his second attempt, after first standing in the constituency in 2017. He grew up in the area and went to a local comprehensive school before studying economics and politics at Oxford. He worked at the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority before moving to a private sector role with the HR platform Remote. He lives in the York area with his wife and young son.