Is age really nothing but a number? I'm Neil Patterson. Welcome to the Sky News Daily. And look, do not worry, I'm not currently experiencing some midlife crisis, but just take a look at the situation in the United States. Donald Trump just romped to victory in the Iowa caucus at the age of 77, and certainly it looks like he has the Republican nomination in the bag. The man who most likely they face for the presidency, Joe Biden. Well, he's 81. Compared and contrast with France, where the combined ages of its President and Prime Minister are still less than the age of the current occupant of the White House. Here's how former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, put it on Sky News Breakfast with Kay Burley. I'm a retired politician.

I'm too old to be a British politician. I don't think you're ever a retired politician. I'm too young to be an American politician. That's one of the questions.

Too old to be a British politician, too young to be an American politician. Nice line, Mr. Brown. So is it age or experience that matters? What can older politicians bring to the table that younger ones cannot and vice versa? How old is too old? How young is too young? Or are these questions simply spurious? Well, joining me to discuss two MPs of differing age and experience. Harriet Harmon is 73, giving her the title of Mother of the House of Commons. She's been a Labor MP for more than 40 years, during which time she's served in various candidates and shadow cabinet jobs as well as select committees. Amy Callahan is 31, an SNP MP for the last four years. She serves as the Party Spokes on Health and Social Care. Amy, to you first, describe to me the first few weeks you spent as an MP. How were you received? How were you perceived, in fact?

It's an interesting one, and I think a lot of it probably does stem from imposter syndrome. It's maybe how we feel about ourselves that dictates how other people feel about I was certainly felt like I'd been chopped into a world that I was completely unfamiliar with.

We're going to call Amy Callahan to make her name in speech.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my first speech in this place on such an important topic. It's my honor to stand before you all as the new SMP representative for Easton Bartenshire. The grandiose of Parliament is not the working class environment in which I grew up, so I I was a bit maybe star struck when I first arrived seeing former Prime ministers and the current Prime Minister at the time walking about. The tap on the shoulder that you always expect when you've got imposter syndrome saying, Why are you here? What are you doing here? This is a space that's not meant for you, was actually what I received and still have received in the last few weeks and months. I don't fit the classic mold of a member of Parliament, and I think that's a good thing.

Because as I understand it, you had been working in politics as an office manager, so the world wasn't entirely new to you, but the place certainly was. But even before you entered, I'm wondering, was your age a factor, a feature in the election campaign itself?

I don't know if it was so much my age. I guess it was like new vibe and ideas that maybe came from my age. That's possibly the more relevant thing. But my constituency of Easton Bartenshire has got a history of electing strong women in their 20s. I'm certainly not the first one, and I hopefully will not be the last.

Indeed. I mean, Harriet, you've been in politics for what? The best part of 40 years. Do you recognize that which Amy is talking about when you first entered Parliament.

I first came into Parliament when I was 32, and I very much agree with Amy when she says it's good in a way to have people in Parliament who don't fit in automatically, who can see what needs to change, who aren't too comfortable because institutions have got a bit of an institutional drag in them, and therefore, people who can see the need for change and be determined to make that change I think it's incredibly important. It refreshes the institution, keeps it up to date. You do need people who feel on the edge, who feel outsiders, and who can look in and say, This is not right.

Speaking personally, had it as someone who hasn't had to pick up a copy of Erskine May for a long, long time. You're talking about the practical experience of someone who has been in politics for your length of time. Can you navigate Parliament properly as a new MP? I'm just wondering, when you first entered in 1982, who did you look up to? Who did you gravitate to for that help and assistance?

Well, I had nobody to gravitate to because I came into Parliament at age 32 and I was pregnant. There'd certainly never been an MP who was elected when they were pregnant, let alone in a by-election. There were 97% men, only 3% women. All the women were very much older than me. There was no other woman there trying to combine being a really active, effective MP with also being a mother. I don't really want younger women to look to older women like me and do what we did because we haven't done nearly enough. They need to do loads more. Anyway, they're doing it in a world which is very different. What I think is important to give to younger women MPs is not advice or telling them how to do it or telling them how we did it or what they should be doing, but just supporting them in the difficulties and the challenges which we know they'll face.

Naomi, you were nodding along there, but you previously mentioned imposter syndrome. I mean, having been in the job now for four years, but still 31 is no age compared to the majority of people in Parliament. I'm wondering whether that still remains with you.

Yeah, of course it does. I actually think a degree of imposter syndrome is healthy. I don't want to feel like a fit in or that I'm part of the furniture in the House of Commons. I don't want to be comfortable, but I do think that waiting for the tap on the shoulder is maybe not always as healthy as it should be. It probably fuels a bit of anxiety. But a huge part of getting to a parliament and being a politician is a huge degree of self-belief. I think we have that in spades, probably. But that little voice in the back of your mind is probably not the worst thing.

I want to take it away from your own personal experience and just take in broader brush strokes for a second. When it comes to filling the more senior roles, even party leader, senior roles in cabinet, prime minister, to what extent is age and therefore experience a factor, Harriet?

Really, it's not the determining factor. It's also about people's attitudes, because if you are a young Prime Minister, that's incredibly important. You've got all the dynamism, you're in touch with the new generation, but you need to have the humility to understand and respect the interests and concerns of the older generation. And similarly, if you've got an older leader, they shouldn't shut out younger people from the team on the basis that they've newly arrived and they don't know anything, and you've got to be really ancient before you are really experienced enough to do anything. So it's about being age-respectful, younger people being age-respectful to older people and older people being age-respectful to younger people. But I think that there's a different thing for age in women than there is in men, because a younger woman is often regarded as a bit flaky, disturbingly attractive, whereas a younger man is somebody who's who's in his prime with a great future ahead of him, possibly a future party leader. Then when a woman's a bit older and perhaps she's having children, well, she's an absolute write-off. She's got too much on her plate. Whereas a man who's a bit older and is children.

He's a family man, reassuringly virile, a solid person. So he's in his prime again. And when it comes to older men, they can be valued for their experience, their wisdom, their maturity, a bit of a Silver Fox thing going on, whereas there's no equivalent for women. They're just a write-off once they're past 50. So I think there is a very different thing about the ages of women, the three ages of women, the three ages of men. So for men, being right at the top of things and being a leader at any age, it's absolutely great. For a woman, there's problems for any age. Can you imagine a leader of the country at At 34, a woman at 34? Well, I mean, I hope it would be possible, but it just feels slightly more difficult.

Was there this period in British politics when things perhaps changed, when Tony Blair came in and then you had David Cameron and nick Clegan, senior, and of course, the one thing, Amy, that unites those three is their gender.

Women don't stand the age test in the same way that men do. Do you need to be experienced in Parliament to be a political leader? I don't think experience necessarily comes just from Parliament. I think life experience and experience the political world generally is incredibly important.

But just to continue on that theme, Amy, one of the things that is often said about politicians is that it's great if they have experience out side of politics. One of the phenomena that I've noticed over the 20 odd years that I've been covering politics on and off is that we have seen a rise in career politicians, people who, for example, were involved in student politics, get a job in central office of Whichever Party, get a job as a special advisor, find themselves a nice safe seat, and then find themselves in a cabinet post in their mid-30s or early-40s. Where do you stand on that particular phenomenon?

Yeah, I think the term career politician is definitely thrown about quite a lot. I think if you look to someone like me, for example, you could potentially see me as a career politician. But I done a wealth of jobs before I got into the political sphere. I was a bartender for years. I was a carer. I think bar work is actually a great experience for politics because you're used to dealing with people's problems. But I think certainly being a younger person, it does seem a standard path to get into politics is to embed yourself within your party and get a job that way.

Is there not, though, Harriet, a case to be made for people spending a significant period of their life outside of politics before entering Parliament? You were very early in as an MP again, but you did have a handful of years working as a lawyer. You were involved in contemplative court cases, mentioned in Parliament, in fact, before you actually walked through doors of the place. Is there not something to be said for people having a career away from politics and then coming to it?

I think that what's important is for in the totality of Parliament, there is a mixture of people with a wide variety of experience. When I first started out in the House of Commons, for example, there were people like Jack straw who'd worked for Barbara Castle and was what you might call a courier politician. But there are also people who'd spent their life working down the mines, literally miners who then had become MPs and brought that experience with them. Really, no one MP is going to represent everything about life in this country and have an understanding about life in every respect in this country. But actually, what you need is a broad spread. You don't want the supposedly career politician expert people looking down on the people who've only just arrived in Parliament. You want to respect their many decades of work outside Parliament and what insight it gives them. But by the same token, you also want the other way around. So you've got to look at the actual totality. If every single person in the House of Commons had been President of the National Union of Student, then that would be a problem. But actually, that's not the case.

We've got people who are doctors, we've got lawyers, we've got people who've done manual work. The point is to have a broad spread, but it's quite demanding for the public to see the nuance of that, especially at a time when on Twitter, it slammed, Oh, it's all career politicians. They don't know anything. And by the way, they're all in it for themselves and don't understand our lives.

Just to keep on that point, Harriet. I mean, you're Westreeting. I remember interviewing him back when he was head of the NUS, and undoubtedly, he will be in a very, very senior post in cabinet if the polling is correct and the election goes the way that pretty much everyone thinks it does. If If you want to be in a senior post in a political party in the early stages of your career, don't you need to have been involved in the party machinery to have the contacts, to have the political nose, even, for that to even be possibility.

Now, when you think of Keir Starmer, Keir Starmer was not in Parliament until 2015. I mean, he wasn't active in politics because he was in a politically neutral role, which was Director of Public Prosecutions. On the one hand, you've got Keir Starmer, who is a recent politician, but incredibly effective. On the other hand, you've got Wes Streeting, who's been doing politics forever, it seems. But Wes is a very exceptional person. He was brought up in a family on free school meals, went to a very ordinary school, is so bright and exceptional. Therefore, that's what he brings to the role. I think, really, I'm just against the categorization. The point is, Do you work hard? Are you decent and honest? Do you understand what the job is? Do you respect and listen to people who are not like yourself? Do you want to make the country a better place? We'll then just crack on.

Harriet, Amy, we will return to you in just a moment when we'll be discussing whether there should be an upper age limit in politics. Back soon. Welcome back to The Daily. Labour's Harriet Harmon and the SNPs, Amy Callahan here discussing age in politics. I wonder, Amy, is there such a thing as an upper limit when it comes to age? I ask because you look across the channel, you've got Gabriel Attal just 34 and French Prime Minister. In the United States, you have likely got an 81-year-old and a 77-year-old duking it out. What do you make of it?

To me, it's whether you can still be effective and still do the role. That comes from an assessment from yourself, I guess, and your political party. But obviously, the most important thing here is that we put ourselves forward regardless of what age we are. We obviously think we're ready to do it, but it's the people in our constituencies that ultimately decide if we pass that test. That's the most important thing. It's their decision. It's them that sets the age limit, I suppose.

Harriet, your thoughts on Donald Trump and Joe Biden. I suppose the thing you might speak to from your own experience is, These days, it does feel whenever Joe Biden stumbles over a word, it has been taken as evidence of old age and infirmity. When Donald Trump stands up and goes off on a tangent, again, coming from the left of the US politics, there are accusations made about his age and his health.

Well, I just want to see anybody who can beat Donald Trump, quite frankly. Perhaps if I was representing somewhere like Eastbourne, which has got quite an older population, I don't know whether I write about Eastbourne, but I think that's the case. I might not be standing down because I would probably be quite representative of East Berlin in the mainstream of the age of people there. But Campbell and Pecker, my constituency, is a very young constituency now. When I first was in the constituency, I was at the same age as a lot of people. It's 40 years on now, and the constituency has only got younger and younger, and I'm older. It needs a younger MP who is more in step with the generation that is prevalent in my constituency.

You've touched on it already, but do you think that having younger MPs encourages more youthful representation in Parliament? I mean, it's been a gradual process over the course of my time in Parliament. But it feels to me there are more younger people being involved, directly involved in the front line of politics than never before. And they bring with it the idealism, the enthusiasm, the lack of cynicism that my 45 years in the planet have given me.

Yeah, I think if you look to a Parliament and you don't see anyone that looks like you, that sounds like you, that's roughly the same age as you, then you're going to think it's a place that wants to lock you out. But I looked to the House of Commons and saw MP he's like Harriet, and it made it seem possible for me. I think that certainly having younger people there and more young women there will only encourage other young women to stand as well.

Well, I think there is a problem always in any democracy, and there certainly is for ours at the moment, of people thinking, does anybody in the House of Commons have any idea about my life? Do they understand me? Are they going to make decisions which are the right ones for me when they're so out of touch? If you got a whole load of ancient MPs, then people in the younger generation are going to think, well, how can they understand what faces me in my life? So you have to have a parliament that looks like the whole of the country. And therefore, you can't just have a whole load of older people who can be regarding themselves as terrific experts. You've got to have young people in so young people can see that there are young people of their own age in the House of Commons making decisions. So it's got to be that age range.

Is it possible for older MPs to be radical? The reason I asked this, over the years that I've covered politics, I've come up with one rule, one rule alone, which is the overwhelming majority people who enter politics do it for exactly the right reasons. But once you have become elected, the overwhelming priority becomes to remain elected, that the radicalism has to be tampered, that the ideas have to be put to one side, that there has to be compromise.

Well, I think my attitudes are as radical as they were. When I came in, I still fume about injustice in terms of poverty, in terms of sex discrimination, in terms of lack opportunities for people. I'm fuming about that now as I was. But I always did believe that you can only change that if you get elected, and therefore, there's no dishonor in listening to the electorate and having a compromise with the electorate because after all, it's their country and it's their parliament. So I always do feel that although I want radical change, you've got to take people with you. You can't do it by yourself.

Yeah, I guess it depends on the fire that you have left in your belly, doesn't it? I can certainly say that my fire, and it sounds like Harriet's as well, is burning bigger and brighter than it ever was before. But we do need to take people on the journey with us, and that should never be at the expense of trying to get reelected. It should be about delivering what you've said to people that you're going to deliver and making sure if those ideas that some may perceive as radical are getting done, then that's what we should be doing.

Amy Amy Callahan, Harriet Harmon. An absolute pleasure to chat to both of you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks. Amy Callahan, Harriet Harmon. Thank you very much indeed. As a society, we are simply not as hung up on age as before. Nor does a candidate's relative youth preclude them from rising to the highest of office. None of which is to say that age is entirely relevant, but that it's not really a matter of how many years a politician has been alive, but what they do with those years that counts. And that's something we could all do with dwelling on from time to time. That's your lot for this edition of The Daily. We'll see you next time. Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard. I'm Sam Cates. And we're inviting you to our homes every Sunday to give you the low down on what to expect in the political week ahead. From Politico and Sky News, this is politics at Jack and Sam's, available every Sunday evening, wherever you get your podcast.