Mhairi Black, Youngest MP For Centuries, Describes Being Patronised By Others At Westminster

Youngest MP Reveals How Patronising Others Are To Her

The youngest MP in the Commons for centuries has described how rival politicians have taken being patronising "to a whole new level".

Mhairi Black was just 20 when she defeated Labour's shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander in May, making her the youngest MP since 1667.

She has described how patronising MPs from other parties have been to her in her first months as a politician.

Mhairi Black is the youngest MP elected since the 17th century

She told The Guardian: “If one more person pats me on the back … it was all the time: ‘How are you, are you alright? How are you finding it?’ I was expecting to be patronised, but it went to a whole new level."

Ms Black, now 21, also described how other MPs reacted to her barnstorming maiden speech in July, in which she condemned restrictions to housing benefits to under-21s, saying she was, as an MP receiving housing allowance, "the only 20-year old in the UK the chancellor is prepared to help with housing".

“After the maiden speech, there are quite a few of them won’t even look at me anymore,” she told The Guardian. When asked whether they were Labour or Tory MPs, she said: “Tories. A lot of Labour wouldn’t look at me in the first place.”

In the same interview, she claimed she was approached to write an autobiography after she was elected, joking she had not done enough to merit one.

"I had people wanting me to write an autobiography: I was born. I went to school. I left. I fried a fish. And now I’m an MP," she said.

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