The Manchester schoolgirl on becoming the talk of the Labour party conference after giving an impassioned speech about education that went viral

Lauren Stocks, a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Greater Manchester, went viral last week with a passionate speech to the Labour party conference, claiming new GCSE exams are putting teenagers under intolerable stress. She won a standing ovation from delegates as she warned of classrooms full of “spaced-out, stressed-out, depressed kids in a battlefield where they can’t afford pens and paper”. Lauren, who joined the Labour party two years ago, is now doing A-levels in history, sociology and politics at a sixth-form college in Rusholme, Manchester.

What did it feel like to be up on that stage?

You know when you’re slightly disorientated? I felt detached from the fact that I was talking to about 1,500 people. I wasn’t aware it was being filmed [for television], although I knew there were cameras there to project it to people in the hall who couldn’t see.

How were you chosen to speak?

You’ve got a panel of about six people, and about 1,500 constituency Labour party delegates and 300 trade union delegates, and they’re like “we want to select three people to speak”. People just have to put their hand up, and the more flamboyant you are the more likely you are to get picked: you get people waving manifestos around, or I think it was lightsabers one year. I wasn’t too flamboyant, because I wanted the time to be able to say what I wanted to say.

You obviously felt very strongly about GCSE stress…

It was just absolutely terrible – in an after-school revision lesson, at one point I sat next to a friend and said: “Mate, are you OK?” and you know when someone goes white? She just shook her head. We had these tests so they could assess your mental arithmetic through the course, and if you failed it you had to resit until you passed, and that caused a lot of people a lot of anxiety.

The last two years of Labour party activism has helped me with anxiety

Do adults understand how bad it is?

My parents understand… they wanted to make sure I was OK. But from what I see, people are like, “kids these days, it’s a weak generation”. Yes, we don’t have to do maths without calculators, we certainly don’t have to deal with abusive teachers, but just because those have gone away doesn’t mean new things won’t crop up. When the speech came out, someone said: “Brilliant speech – Lauren has backed the idea that NHS mental health staff should be a part of schools.” Now I’m for that, it seems like a cool idea, but it’s a little bit like putting a bucket under a leak. It’s not treating the underlying cause, which is that kids are threatened with the idea of failure more than they were, and not really empowered to succeed like they should be. There’s more and more emphasis put on having a good education.

Does that make teenagers fear the consequences of failure?

To avoid being stuck in a dead-end job, somewhere you don’t feel like you are making a difference or don’t have a good quality of life, education is the route out. And that’s why we are so, so terrified of not doing well.

Do you come from a political family?

I come from a working-class background, and my stepmum is in the NHS, she’s a staff nurse. But while my mum’s never been one to say “I don’t vote”, she’s not political really.

So how did you get into politics?

When I was 12 or 13 I had really bad trouble concentrating when I was writing, so I thought I’d try podcasts to listen to in the background. I found some really heavy leftwing ones, and the more I listened the more it made sense. Then I found some more accessible ones that taught me more about American politics. But mainly it’s YouTube videos – one of my all-time political idols is Owen Jones.

Did you join Labour because of Jeremy Corbyn?

I did. I felt a little bit deflated, because I thought: “I don’t think parliamentary politics is something I want to engage in but I know anything outside the box will never get anywhere.” And then Jeremy Corbyn got on the ballot.

Were you nervous making the speech?

I was bricking it! It wasn’t quite nervousness, it was more adrenaline really. I have generalised anxiety disorder, so nerves and adrenaline often come across as passion and anger. The last two years of Labour party activism have helped me with that.

How have they helped?

One of my big anxieties is not being able to help people and live a useful life, so for me to be able to stand up and do stuff like this, it makes me feel slightly more self-assured that I’m not wasting my life away.

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How was your first conference?

I’ve met all the political greats – Dennis Skinner, Ian Lavery [Labour’s general election organiser] and after my speech Len McCluskey asked me for a photo. And Jon Lansman from Momentum – I was saying “I literally owe you my teenage years” – and John McDonnell. I met Jeremy Corbyn briefly as I was trying to find my way somewhere and he was like, “Loving your hair”. And I met Ed Miliband at the Momentum quiz, and Emily Thornberry. It’s been amazing.

Do you want to go into politics yourself?

My family are like, “You’ll be PM one day, you know” and I’m just: “No!” Hands up, the Labour party for me is just a hobby that got out of hand. It was never meant to be a career – frankly I’m not too sure I trust career politicians. The careers I’ve looked at are teaching, journalism.

Young people are often accused of political apathy. Is that unfair?

Russell Brand said something very poignant on Question Time: “If you really want people to engage in politics, just give them something to fucking vote for.” That’s what was holding us back. Nobody was representing us. The turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds [at the last election] was estimated to be about 64% – we are not quite at the level of octogenarians, but we are getting there. I don’t think that’s going to go backwards, provided political parties can engage people in an authentic way. Just make sure people can trust you, and you don’t come across as someone who doesn’t really believe what they say, and you’ll win our hearts.