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MP at 22?
Olly_B
Posts: 222 Trailblazer
TheSite.org caught up with Meryl Roberts, a 22-year-old who is trying to become an MP. Watch the video here and let us know what you think.
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Well according to her bio she was born aged 20 (a miracle in itself), so she'll be 40
That said I'm cynical about people becoming MPs who have no real life experience and whose only selling point is that they are under twenty five...
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Somebody said it's like £500 or something...
Still, if you can afford the costs and time off work, why not?
I think a bigger barrier to getting in to Parliament is still socio-economic, rather than age.
You have to pay a deposit, and if you get less than 5% of the vote you don't get it back (hence why you'll sometimes hear political commentators talking about people 'losing their deposit').
The historical reason for this is that you could be excused from national service if you were standing for election, so lots of people stood for election just to avoid doing their national service.
The cost was £500 for the 2005 parliamentary election.
Olly
I see, so if you're on around £15K or less, you have to give them around half a month's wages as a deposit to be allowed to run?
What about the expenses for campaign material?
I guess you'd have to fundraise, right?
Very few people will fund themselves and you'll get free postal delivery of one of your leaflets (which is probably worth more than £500 straight off). And remember the system is there to elect representatives to Parliament - not a cheap way for pressure groups to get subsidised publicity...
It's a deposit, not a charge. If you are that confident of getting 5% of the vote, you could take out a loan or borrow it from someone else.
One solution is to change the £500 deposit to requiring a certain percentage of constituents to nominate you (eg 0.5% is around 350 signatures required). However, collecting them, and then validating them would be a hugely complicated process, unless you tied it to the annual electoral roll (and made it more like the US system of voters registered to a particular party). That then limits the opportunity for independent candidates.
It's not just the cost; any serious candidate will need a team of people to go out and campaign on their behalf. Personally, I would really struggle to believe that a serious candidate couldn't find £500 between their supporters.
Even if she does manage to get elected to parliament, she'll get ripped apart by everyone else, simply because she is so inexperienced.
True... I guess if the supporters helped, it'd be ok.
I'm just curious, as I'd be interested in standing one day (independent, or Green), but for somebody in my position, it looks like it'd be really hard. Like you'd also need a lot of time off work (but then a lot of jobs give holiday pay).
As for somebody who is 22... I think age isn't an issue. She may have experienced more of the world, or understand social issues in greater depth than somebody who has been through private school and then uni out of daddy's pocket and never set foot on a council estate, who is a lot older.
I think a lot of MPs don't live in the real world anyway.
But has been pointed out very few people will find themselves (and those that do are so egocentric that they probably would be a shit representative anyway)
but what's the real world - running a business keeping people in employment? what about sweating it up on a dusty road in Bosnia? Or dealing with a complex legal argument about IT law? All these are as much the real world as a narrowly defined one of social work.
Which isn't to say that MPs shouldn't deal with issues in deprived areas (and many back-benchers of all parties spend an awful lot of time on glorified social work), but to argue that only a certain type of experience counts seems to me to be as bad as saying only those who've managed a business should be allowed to become MPs.
A 22 year old might be more in sync with the wider public, than somebody who has lived in an upper middle class up bringing.
I'm not saying that any kind of experience counts more than another, but tbh a great deal of people in parliament have experienced far greater economic comfort than most individuals, or have gone to independent schools....
So no, I don't think they are always in touch with the electorate. Seeing as most people can't afford to go to private schools and some can't afford university...
I don't have an issue with privately educated people, it just worries me that there aren't enough working class people in parliament. It doesn't feel 'even'.
I don't think it is an issue of direct discrimination, obviously.
Sounds like small beer, really.
It matters entirely!
This isn't the USA where being able to relate to the electorate is all you need in some sort of grotesque popularity contest. If you're going to be doing consituency work, or you're going to be part of any sort of decision making process then life experience is a necessity.
My local MP is one of the most boring men on the planet. I voted for him because I know he does a good job, not because I relate to his circumstances or upbringing.