Youngest MEP goes back to the classroom in Spilsby

Connecting with youth is one of the aims of the youngest British minister in the European Parliament who visited the area last week.

Emma McClarkin, MEP for East Midlands toured around the Boston area on Friday, where she visited King Edward VI Humanities College in Spilsby and The Boston Standard offices before heading to an evening with the Boston Conservative Association.

At the college, Miss McClarkin took over a year 10 citizenship class, where she spoke to 14 and 15-year-olds about what the EU does, it’s electoral systems, and how it effects England, especially what legislation is passed there.

She said she found that the children were not expecting her, when she asked them what they had expected they replied old, wrinkly and with no life.

As a member of the culture and education committee she said: “Young people are not always engaged with politics.

“I like to encourage children to get into politics, they even come see me in the EU sometimes.

“They weren’t afraid to interrupt me and were very interested, even asking me about David Cameron, if I had met him and what he looked like.

“Very handsome is the answer, by the way.”

In the evening Miss McClarkin spoke to the Conservative Association of Boston where she spoke to around 60 people about her seven months in office, what she had done, legislation the Conservatives are looking at and her experiences to date.

She was first elected at the European election in June 2009 as a Conservative Party MEP making her, at the age of 30, the youngest British MEP.