Friday, July 05, 2024

North West Cambridgeshire elects Britain's youngest MP on night of high drama


By Ben Jones
Published 5th Jul 2024

New North West Cambridgeshire MP Sam Carling will be the youngest MP of the new parliament after his shock win over Shailesh Vara.

22-year-old Carling overturned Mr Vara’s 25,983 majority that he won in the 2019 General Election.

Mr Vara had served at the North West Cambridgeshire since 2005 and fought five successful election campaigns but was not able to defend his seat for a fifth time.
Sam Carling and Shailesh Vara shake hands on stage after the results were announced. Photo: David Lowndes.

Mr Vara’s defeat highlighted what a bad night it was for the Conservatives given that the North West Cambridgeshire seat was previously considered one of the safest seats in the country for the party. The party look set to end the election on their lowest number of seats ever with their numbers set to be under 120.

It could hardly have been closer though as the final result was not announced until a couple of minutes before 6am due to a full recount.

The recount was asked for by Labour after the two candidates were reportedly separated by just 23 votes.


It was the second recount of the night as Paul Bristow had called for a recount in Peterborough less than an hour earlier.

The final result came out as a victory for Carling by a margin of just 39 votes (14,785 to 14,746).

Mr Carling has become only North West Cambridgeshire’s third ever MP and the first non-Conservative MP the constituency has ever had since in was created in 1997.


There were only five candidates but the Reform candidate James Sidlow finished a comfortable third ahead of Bridget Smith of the Liberal Democrats and Green candidate Elliot Tong.

The turnout was 58.76%, which represented an almost 10% from the 2019 turnout figure of 68%. It was also the constituency’s lowest ever turnout figure, with the previous lowest 61.6% in 2005.

The results in full were: Sam Carling (Labour) 14,785, Shailesh Vara (Conservatives) 14,746, James Sidlow (Reform) 8,741, Bridget Smith (Lib Dem) 3,192, Elliot Tong (Green) 2,960.

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