Good luck to SNP MP Mhairi Black

"..I think I had much more in common with your DD, tabula!"

Me too, well without the clever bit, lol.

Penguins - I think everybody when she was selected would have thought that seat was a lost cause tbh.

I know a few people who joined the SNP after the referendum and they said at the time of candidate selection that they were hoping to get 20 seats...even when the results were being announced, I had been paying attention to polls (and of course there was that exit poll) and knew it was looking like they were getting more than that, but I was still shocked at that seat and a few others.

I really do suspect that events just overtook them and her, so really at that point all she can do is try to do it successfully.

I wouldn't have voted for her because of her age, but I worry for her, god, clearly I'm too middle aged, lol.

Rose, she supplements her student income by doing shifts in a chippy. If she was really middle class she'd have no need for a top up student job

And I left my (private) school for the leafy suburbs and worked in a rough pub, washing dishes and stacking shelves. One of my sisters collected carcasses at a chicken farm. I am not sure what your point is. Many students have jobs and only the wealthiest can afford to just study all year. Nearly all my school pupils have part time jobs.

And from Paisley to Glasgow is a commute, not a move. Common or not (and my Scottish school pupils don't have this option because there is no Uni nearby) it still limits her life experience. What has she done? Gone to school, gone to University, earned some beer tokens (or is it vodka?) in a chippy?

Her reaction to tuition fees in the clip posted above has actually really angered me. She's a graduate on £60,000+ a year yet hasn't paid a penny towards the education that got her there. I'm not saying university fees should go on rising, or that £9,000 is an acceptable amount, but the idea that she shouldn't even contribute towards her higher education (as a graduate, not upfront) is just entitled in my opinion. Under the system we have in England (which is essentially a graduate tax) she would not have been denied university access on the basis of not being able to pay, and her arguement that it is is a sign of her immaturity. Be that because she actually doesnt understand English policy on education or because she deliberately overlooked the reality to legitimise her point is irrelevant.

Stuart Donaldson www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/westminster/481940/public-health-ministers-son-standing-for-westminster/ 23 year old new mp.

If I was in her constituency, I would think the pure fact of selecting a 20 year old student as my candidate showed that they had given up the seat as unwinnable. And wouldn't think much of them for that.

No way should a person of that age (male or female) be voted in. It shows blind loyalty to the party. As others have said, she could have been a cat in a rosette and she still would have won.

I would say that any self-aware 20 year old would have the awareness to recognise that they aren't ready for the job. The fact that she thinks she is implies to me that she has a simplistic view of what it will involve.

Interesting that everyone thinks Mhairi Black is working class,

I dont think she's working class.

I find her not to have any class at all.

As someone said up thread, the SNP could have put up a blind donkey with a speech impediment in some constituencies and they would have been voted in. Such is the level of disillusionment at the Labour party and the level of admiration for Nicola Sturgeon.

My new MP was formally a local councillor - and a pretty ineffectual one at that - but still won a massive majority over a very experienced and hard working incumbent who was, you've guessed it, Labour.

All we can do is wait and see if the new MPs rise to the challenge and learn fast. I am sure Salmond and Sturgeon will keep things under control - one thing the SNP is very good at is staying on message (the SNP gagging clause helps that).

Interesting that everyone thinks Mhairi Black is working class, despite her middle class parents and the fact she's doing a politics degree (sounds a bit similar to Ed Miliband if you ask me?).

...I think I had much more in common with your DD, tabula!

"Genuine enquiry, tabulahrasa - has he ever had a job?"

No, he has put so much time into actually studying that he hasn't.

DD is 15, she's had little jobs like that, but, she's a very different person...and most of her friends don't work at all.

DS at school for instance, went in for all the study sessions they run in school holidays even though he was predicted As, he spent all his study leave and most of his spare time actually studying. So he has a good work ethic, it's just that he wants his qualifications and is putting it all towards that, I'm quite happy to support that as he does work hard.

DD on the other hand is a do as little work as possible at school and put minimum effort in with homework kind of person, she gets good grades at school, but she's one if those clever and lazy types, so working is good for her.

I worked in a chip shop when I was at school and college but none of my children have worked whilst in further education.

Are we middle class? Well, where we live we're considered to be a 'big family', or so Ive been told, but Im still very much the working class girl I was growing up in Scotland and my husband is still very much the son of illiterate shopkeepers.

I still wouldn't like any of my lot to be as unpolished as Mhairi is.

And thank you, all for the info re names and the vocative! That's just fascinating.

Genuine enquiry, tabulahrasa - has he ever had a job? Because I am finding it a bit odd that my DS at 13 has never had a job outside the home. Though childhood is very different now to what it was when I was his age.

(NB: I'm not actually expecting DS to get a job at 13, not least because I don't even know if it's still legal, but I'd had a number of jobs - babysitting network, paper rounds, etc - by 13, and an after-school office job and a coffee shop job before I'd hit 16.)

Oh yes and as hirples said the vocative thing is only if you're actually speaking gaelic, even gaelic speakers don't do it in English.

"Blimey, Hirples I had no idea! So you'd never call someone "Seamus" to their face?"

It's a-Sheamus if you're talking directly to Seamus and the s becomes silent and Mairi becomes a-Mhairi and the mh becomes a v sound.

So it's kind of become Hamish and used as a name in it's own right.

I honestly don't know if it would never be used, but definitely if you're wanting to get their attention to start with (which is where you'd usually use somebody's name in conversation) or telling somebody off it's the vocative form.

"Do any of you here who are middle class seriously expect your twenty year old student children not to get jobs, too?"

I've never worked out if I'm middle class or not, but DS is 19 and no he doesn't work as well as study, he lives at home because he'd need to work too many hours to study and live alone, so travelling cuts into potential working time and it's a heavy course. We feed him and house him and he lives very frugally on his loan. His loan would only just pay for accommodation if he moved out.

ArcheryAnnie, no, not if you were speaking Gaelic. But most people with Gaelic names don't, so I still call my nephew Seamus when chatting with him. :)

Arguably a 'normal' 20 year old wouldn't think that they have the wisdom to represent/run their part of the United Kingdom - as a job that does not fall into the 'if you're old enough, you're good enough' category.

Ability should be the litmus test, everything else, defensive smoke and mirrors. IMO.

And the idea that it's not normal for a middle class twenty year old to earn a bit of money with a part time job while at university is just bizzare. It doesn't mean she isn't middle class.

Do any of you here who are middle class seriously expect your twenty year old student children not to get jobs, too?

Yeah give us his name, and we'll start by seeing if he still wears short trousers.

There's also a 23 year old bloke who just became an mp, but funny how no one's criticising him or his hair? It's just young women we pour scorn at!

Perhaps like me people aren't aware of his existence.

Start a thread about him, Jackie and we will all give our opinion!

But - there is a difference between 20 and 23. Not much of one, but there is. Not that I'm that thrilled about a 23-year-old, either.

Rose, she supplements her student income by doing shifts in a chippy. If she was really middle class she'd have no need for a top up student job!

She doesn't go to her local uni (Paisley/west of Scotland) but commutes to Glasgow. This is much more common in Scotland than England.

As far as I am aware she is just finishing her finals so won't still be a student at the same time as an mp.

People here don't seem to realise how much of the constituency casework isn't actually done by the mp but by their staff team! (None of them will be 20!)

There's also a 23 year old bloke who just became an mp, but funny how no one's criticising him or his hair? It's just young women we pour scorn at!

...or "change" her skiddies daily without her mum doing the washing?

Maybe mums last words 'don't forget to press your trousers', was family code? lol

(If you're wondering, it's Seamus if you're talking about him, Hamish if you're speaking to him.)

Blimey, Hirples I had no idea! So you'd never call someone "Seamus" to their face?

I liken her to the grads we have joining work.. ( huge multi national) they come with ideas about how to change the world and then quickly realise things don't work like that.

Change takes time to achieve, with lots of facets to it and needs more skills to achieve than passion. Does she have the emotional maturity to realise how she needs to change and adapt to influence change?

*grow