Mhairi Black: Meet the 20-year-old who has become Britain's youngest MP since 1667 [PHOTO]

Mhairi Black (Photo Credit: Daily Independent

A 20-year-old SNP student has booted out Labour heavyweight Douglas Alexander in one of the biggest coups by the Scottish nationalists.

Mhairi Black overturned the shadow foreign secretary’s huge 16,000 majority to win by a comfortable margin of 5,684 votes in the Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat. She is set to be the youngest MP in Parliament and the youngest since the 19th century.

This is an interview with Ms Black first published on 24 April:

With a smile, a chuckle and a little bit of youthful earnestness, Mhairi Black, SNP candidate for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, sought to persuade the wavering voter.

“This is a real chance,” she said. “Things like this don’t come along very often.”

They certainly don’t. If elected, the 20-year-old will become the youngest MP since 1667, when Christopher Monck, aged 13 and a half, became knight of the Shire for Devon. 

She will go to London to be enrolled in her first graduate job – member of Parliament – and a couple of weeks later return to take her final Glasgow University exam, on Scottish politics.

- Daily Independent