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A 22-year-old has been elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the UK's general election on Thursday. Sam Carling won the seat for North West Cambridgeshire by the slimmest of majorities. Mr Carling, from the Labour Party, narrowly beat the incumbent Conservative Party candidate by 39 votes. He will now sit in Parliament in Westminster and represent the interests and concerns of the people in his Cambridge seat. At Westminster, he will be called the "baby of the House". This is the unofficial title given to the youngest MP. Carling, a science graduate from Cambridge University, called his victory a "political earthquake". He hopes his achievement will spur on young people to enter politics, and "tackle apathy".
Mr Carling said his interest in politics was sparked by the social and economic decline he saw in the UK. He grew up in what he described as "a very deprived area" in the north of England. This is an area the Conservative Party had promised to "level up" and turn into a "northern powerhouse". However, these lofty promises went unkept. Carling said: "I saw a lot of things getting worse around me. I was concerned about shops closing on local high streets that used to be a thriving hub and are basically now a wasteland." He hopes the newly-elected Labour Party will undo 14 years of Conservative misrule, scandal, sleaze and corruption. Britain's public services are in chaos and people are worse off than they were 14 years ago.
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