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 moment for the cohort of young people born between around 1995 and 2012, and who are now no older than 29. Their numbers have grown from two before the election to 10 this week. All but one of them have been elected to sit on the Labour benches, including the first MPs to have been born in the 2000s.
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 extended project qualifications and Duke of Edinburgh awards.
Sam Carling, North West Cambridgeshire, 22
Carling becomes the baby of the house after ousting the veteran Conservative MP Shailesh Vara by 39 votes. He grew up in the north-east of England where he 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 while he campaigned in North West Cambridgeshire.
He has batted away comments about his age, telling 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, Hertford and Stortford, 24
Dean overturned a Tory majority of nearly 20,000 to win his Hertfordshire constituency, one of many commuter seats in the south of England to turn red. The 24-year-old went to a comprehensive 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 Bishop’s Stortford Museum and Arts CIO.
Euan Stainbank, Falkirk, 24
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 Association, which helped international students with accommodation issues during the pandemic.
Joshua Reynolds, Maidenhead, 25
In a particularly crushing blow to the Conservatives, Theresa May’s former constituency of Maidenhead fell to the Liberal Democrats’ Reynolds on election night. Reynolds went to a local comprehensive school and studied business and management studies at Cardiff Metropolitan University, where he wrote his dissertation on the future of the high street. He worked up to managing a chain of supermarkets in the south-east.
Keir Mather, Selby, 26
Mather was thrust into the spotlight when he overturned a 20,000 Conservative majority to win the Selby and Ainsty byelection last July. His win made him the baby of the house and was taken as evidence that Labour was on track to win a landslide. The Oxford history and politics graduate – who like Starmer was named after Labour’s founder, Keir Hardie – was re-elected in the redrawn constituency of Selby with a majority of 10,000.
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Rosie Wrighting, Kettering, 26
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, who is a single parent and the chief executive of the local charity Youth Works. Like the Labour leader, 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 female cabinet minister, Margaret Bondfield.
Jacob Collier, Burton and Uttoxeter, 27
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 student 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.
Nadia Whittome, Nottingham East, 27
Whittome is practically a veteran in the gen Z cohort – she is about to serve for her second parliamentary term, having been first elected at age 23 in 2019 which made her the baby of the house at the time. 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 is in parliament. She is on the left of the parliamentary Labour party and has been outspoken on the cost of living, the climate crisis and carers.
Lloyd Hatton, South Dorset, 28
Hatton overturned a 17,000 majority to unseat Richard Drax by 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 has been a councillor. Before becoming an MP he worked as a political researcher and has been involved in political campaigning in the US.
Luke Charters, York Outer, 28
Charters won York Outer from the Tories on his second attempt, after standing in the constituency in 2017, when he was 21. 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.
