‘What am I going to do with my life?!’ Mhairi Black on

When she was sworn in, aged 20, she was the youngest MP to be appointed since 1832. Now the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster, she looks back on 10 years of hard work and ‘hellish’ travel

For some MPs, the general election announcement came as a shock; for others, a starting pistol. But for Mhairi Black it was the end of “a sort of purgatory”, as she prepared to step down as MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, a position she has held for almost a decade. She will turn 30 in September. “I’m about to be exactly where I was 10 years ago, asking: ‘What am I going to do with my life?’”

The Scottish National party’s deputy leader at Westminster announced last summer that she intended to leave the Commons, a place she has variously described as “defunct”, “depressing”, “sexist”, “poisonous” and “one of the most unhealthy workplaces that you could ever be in”.