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.

"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."

Those ARE your words.

Weebirdie - yes, she only recently joined the SNP, same with another couple of the newly elected MPs. They've all been involved in politics in one way or another for at least the last couple of years, just not necessarily in a party.

What's 'ghastly' about her?

Wee - her personal habits.

She's no rough diamond. She just lacks polish full stop.

I've already said, I think her age is an issue, yes young people need representation too, but, it's a big job with an awful lot of responsibility and demands that I'm really not convinced a 20 yr old is up to...I hope for the sake of her constituents and herself that I'm proved wrong.

But, I overheard somebody calling her rough today...that really annoyed me once I thought about it.

From what little I've heard of her speaking she seems eloquent enough, yes she has a strong accent and no she's not particularly groomed - but does that actually make a difference to whether she can be an MP?

Rough just seemed...so judgemental about the trivial things, I mean would she be a better MP with a different accent and better hairstyle?

She is hardly a working class heroine. Her Mum is a teacher, her Dad a University Lecturer. She is about as Middle Class as they come. She talks about poverty in soundbites. She knows little of the struggles of real people. FGS - she didn't even leave her home city to go to University somewhere else. Can you imagine how limited her experience is? Where has she travelled? Ibiza? What has she genuinely seen? A few lecture halls and a student march or two?

A 20 year old who has at least travelled somewhere for work / study would at least have some experience to offer.

weeburrower1 ... YES they were my words, in the context of Greece and most of the rest of Europe, having experienced a recession, being sucked in by the tricksy words of politicians trying to seize a (hopefully) once in a century event - for their own nationalist ends.

Tell me of the sustainable logic of the core SNP messages.

• Scotland can be financially independent (no matter where the price of oil is).

• The UK can grow our way out of £1,500,000,000,000 (£1.5 trillion) of National Debt (currently) accumulating at a budget deficit £87 billion plus interest a year - by borrowing shed loads more than £87 billion a year, to spend on...on.....what exactly?

• The UK in bringing down the £157 billion budget deficit (in 2010), far larger than any country the rest of Europe, having increased 'real' spending over a decade far larger than the rest of Europe - was "austerity" rather than financial responsibility, with a UK Base Rate at an all time low from the 17th century - so interest charges on all that debt can only go one way, UP.

• Canceling a Trident project costing £100 bil over the next 35-years, will solve all our £1.5 trillion (rising to £2 trillion in 2020 by extra spending?) debt problems.

There is NO logic, they are the populist "magic wand" political donkey messages as a means to an end; an Independent Scotland.

'Where has she travelled? Ibiza?'

What's wrong with Ibiza? Ed Miliband is over there now, sunning it up while the Labour Party is torn over which Oxbridge canddate to choose as Leader and which Oxbrdige candidate to choose as Deputy Leader.

'A 20 year old who has at least travelled somewhere for work / study would at least have some experience to offer.'

But most of her constituents won't have travelled much for work/study either. She is there to act as a voice for people and to challenge the privileged few and I think she has the guts to do it.

Douglas Alexander had lots of experience, but the peple decided they had had enough.

'Rough just seemed...so judgemental about the trivial things'

We have been conditioned to think that people with posh accents and Oxbridge degrees are the most capable and best for the job. But it isn't true. I love her accent and the more varied accents we have in parliament, the sooner the conditioning that we have been subjected to will disappear and the sooner we will get people who represent our interests rather than those of the privileged circle.

i suspect that a lot of people in Scotland voted for the party/Nicola rather than the actual candidate, i.e. I think she was elected despite being 20 rather than because she is 20.

I was politically active as a teen, and reasonably sensible, but I don't think me, or Mhairi, or any other 20-year-old has enough experience to be an MP. It's not her fault, and it doesn't make her a bad person, it's just chronological. I hope that she employs a few people who know Westminster well and can at least carry things for a bit while she completes her degree. (I don't approve of anyone doing other jobs while being an MP, and that includes being a full-time student as well as the Boris's of this world who have other full time jobs, too.)

And I wish people would stop equating "being Scottish" with "being an Authentic Member Of The Working Class". It's patronising and inaccurate bullshit.

Having said all the above, she could brow into it and be fantastic. Good luck to her. Whatever happens, I don't envy her. (Though I might envy her salary and her pension package a little bit.)

*grow

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?

(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?

...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

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!

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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. :)

"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.

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.

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.)

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