Good luck to SNP MP Mhairi Black

[claig]

She is phenomenal - just 20 years old, SNP MP.

"I'm not the one who should be nervous, the people who are responsible for so much poverty and so much struggle in people's lives, they're the ones who should be nervous becase they're the ones who are going to held accountable for all the damage that they do to people"

Thet are going to shake our usual spinners up. They won't know what hit them. The SNP have some great women MPs - saw some of them on TV over the weekendm a real breath of fresh air - they are going to shake things up and not put up with the bowing and doffing of caps crap.

They don't conform to the traditional profile of our useless lot. This is a bit like the movie "Mr Smith Goes to Washington". I can't remember what happens in that movie though.

Bloody hell claig, it's a bit of a switch from Farridge to the SNP innit? Still, I suppose both are nationalists though each is from opposing sides. Garage is from the austerity loving racist right and Black is from the austerity denying left.

Actually, Prof Steve Keen has interesting views on austerity, he's well worth looking up. I'd certainly vote for him to replace the Gidiot. Mind you, I'd vote for a cauliflour to replace the towel folder...

So, it is OK for people who trashed restaurants to be the chancellor of the exchequer/PM/Mayor of London? Because they're rich and part of the elite?

But not for a 20 year old to be an MP?

She will be running her own office, not the country. She won't be making laws.

Good for her.

I seem to be one of the few that is not at all impressed with this woman. I'm all for young voices in parliament but Mhari Black does not come across well.

Im not impressed with her either.

She has a lot more of the real life experience I want to see in politicians than the bullington club boys have.

How is it we think 20 is old enough to found a family, pay tax, die in war but not sit as an mp?

Parliament is meant to be representative, that means a mix of people not just the stale pale male mould.

I am hoping the 56 SNP MPs heading to London will broaden their horizons, see themselves as part of the larger struggle for creating a decent society regardless of where you were born or live and start to question their narrow nationalism.

"She is a 20 year old! If there was ever a reason for an age bar on entering Parliament, she is it. She is a crass, heavy drinking, foul-mouthed teen. I teach teenagers and most of those I teach are worth a dozen of her. She will be tabloid fodder when she relaxes her guard and gets pissed on the Terrace on cheap booze."

^ This

And to those referring to the antics of the Bullingdon club need to be reminded that was almost 30 years ago, those MPs grew up. This new MP was continuing in her usual antics during the election. I don't know what they were thinking voting her in.

And yes 20 years is plenty old enough to marry and have children and die for your country etc... etc... I'd happily say there are many 20 year olds very capable of being an MP... She is not one of them.

What on earth is real life experience?

Her dad is the motivational speaker Jack Black. She's not the daughter of a miner or anything! She certainly must have had a very comfortable home life.

And then from school right to university. She has barely experience of anything.

There are pranks and there is sectarian abuse. Imagine if someone had been racist when they were 18, would you all be defending them without a grovelling apology?

And to those referring to the antics of the Bullingdon club need to be reminded that was almost 30 years ago, those MPs grew up. This new MP was continuing in her usual antics during the election. I don't know what they were thinking voting her in

They were about her age.

She was voted in. That's democracy.

And those in power now-many of them haven't had proper jobs! Or a normal upbringing as they're rich and insulated.

'sectarian abuse', 'continued her antics during the campaign' - neither of those things happened. She's never been sectarian. If you're going to criticise her, don't make things up to do so.

Also her dads name is Alan and he's a former teacher. I don't know where you're getting all your false information.

A Murdoch newspaper I suspect.

What counts as 'life experience'? It seems pretty subjective to me. She has immediate, first hand knowledge of the difficulties and struggles facing students for a start, and despite education being devolved those issues are the same UK wide. She has knowledge about what the people who voted for her want. And what about the different perspective offered from the status quo? Isn't parliament supposed to be a reflection of society, of all ages and backgrounds?

It seems to me that plenty are almost willing her to fail. I hope she does well and inspires working class women in the same way her own inspiration, Margo MacDonald, did. The whole point is that she represents her constituency in parliament and she was the only viable candidate to to stand on an anti-austerity, anti-Trident, pro-devo/home rule platform. A majority in that constituency decided that's what they wanted and perhaps it says more that the other main candidate wasn't offering that when once upon a time its exactly what they stood for.

The lack of knowledge on Mhairi Black and the judgements being made on that basis are embarrassing. She's been involved in grassroots politics for at least the last couple of years, she hasn't been sectarian, her dad isn't a motivational speaker, the tweets which were dragged up were mostly from when she was 17, and her language is and was typical of a young, every day West of Scotland teenager.

As I said, if people are going to criticise her, at least do it from a basis of knowing anything about her.

She didn't call someone a cunt though, did she? It was used in a tweet in that way that some people in Scotland use it where it isn't really regarded as swearing...

I mean it's not a great sign if she didn't realise it wasn't appropriate if it was recently, but if it was before she was a candidate it's not the same.

tabulahrasa - what did she actually say in that one? I'm not aware of it, only one where the media tried to give the impression that she's said cunt when she actually said crap.

I'm glad you pointed out that the word also isn't necessarily actually an insult in the west of Scotland and is used in various contexts.

Oh I've no more knowledge about it than anyone else, it could well be crap, either kind of fits.

That was kind of my point, in some places for some people cunt and crap are interchangeable and cunt is often used instead of body as in, does any cunt have a lighter, or some cunt was in front of me at the post office...and yes it's not polite, but it's not the same as it's used normally.

I think the hardest thing for her will be in her constituency. I have no doubt she will try to be compassionate and helpful, but how many 40 year olds with a problem that they feel can only be dealt with by their MP will be happy to talk to a 20 year old student, possibly about deeply personal issues?

I wonder if any 20 year old with limited life experience could cope with the horror stories she will face.

In Greece their nationalist anti austerity Syriza party, full of open neck shirted, leather clad, pony tailed radicals, with REAL austerity fuelled poverty and despair affecting the majority of Greeks, received around 36% of the Greek vote.

May I suggest that for an anti austerity SNP party whipping up so much support with far less poverty than Greece and polling over 50% of the vote, Mhairi Black could have put forward her favourite pet with a digital recorded message around its neck (on a loop) saying ‘no austerity, no austerity, no austerity……’ – and it would have got elected to Westminster.

There is a reason why the Lords upper house have existed for hundreds of years and why Mhairi is the youngest MP for hundreds of years;

Westminster has never enrolled in a government ‘work experience’ scheme, as votes on proposed legislation can often be very tight, and few of us would trust a 20-years old to run OUR own house, never mind the House of Parliament and its laws that affect the whole land.

Its a nonsense folks, but its democratic, but similar to the home of democracy - on a mission impossible to persuade those with the purse strings that 'pipers don't need to pay' back the consequences of too much debt - Ms Black is destined to fail, one way or another.

Isitmebut - suggesting the people of her constituency, and half the people of Scotland by extension, are stupid isn't very becoming.

weeburrower1 ... please concentrate on projecting your own words, rather than trying to put them in my mouth.

If you WANT my words they would be 'Scottish lions led by political donkeys'.

The fact is, after the worst recession in 80 odd years, politicians across Europe are taking advantage of the economic affects TO GAIN POWER, and it is not without president - you might find this whole article not only interesting, but enlightening listening to the SNP's core messages.

”From Glasgow to Barcelona, historian DOMINIC SANDBROOK fears Europe is returning to the crude nationalism that caused such misery”
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2763047/From-Glasgow-Barcelona-historian-DOMINIC-SANDBROOK-fears-Europe-returning-crude-nationalism-caused-misery.html

“As we have seen throughout history, from Germany and Italy in the 1930s to the war-torn Yugoslavia in the 1990s, nationalism thrives as a panacea, offering glib solutions and easy scapegoats. But it also offers an immensely compelling appeal to people who feel stranded by economic change and abandoned by their privileged political masters.”

"In that sense, strange as it may sound, it is obvious why so many Scottish voters fell for the vision propounded by the demagogues, cranks and zealots so prominent in the separatist campaign."

”They believed that Mr Salmond offered them something better: a magic wand that would transform their fortunes overnight”

"Those sentiments are not going to vanish overnight."

"In many ways, they are the mirror image of the alienation felt by millions of voters in England."

”And in that respect, the rise of Scottish nationalism is not so different from the extraordinary surge in Ukip support south of the border, where Nigel Farage — another cheeky chap peddling simple solutions — plays the part of Mr Salmond.”

And all THAT to Conservative hatred, then the SNP had a Scottish 'win double' that resulted in 56-seats, but now Ms Sturgeon has to deliver but will largely not be able to.

“Ukip and the hard-Left are both blinded by Tory hatred”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11252159/Ukip-and-the-hard-Left-are-both-blinded-by-Tory-hatred.html

I read she had only joined the SNP's after the recent referendum.

And now she's an MP?

She's ghastly.