Labour's Youngest Candidate Is Trying to Oust the Lib Dem Leader

Just weeks from sitting his A-level exams, 18-year-old Eli Aldridge is taking on Lib Dem leader Tim Farron. Standing as the Labour candidate in the Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency, he's the youngest Labour politician running nationwide. The election takes place the day after his first exam (Politics).

Westmorland and Lonsdale is a relatively affluent rural seat. At the last general election – in which just 58 percent of 18 to 25-year-olds voted – Labour came in with under 3,000 votes. Held by right-wing Tory Tim Collins until 2005, it's now Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron's turf, and his majority has increased significantly since winning the seat by just 267 votes back in 2005.

"That's the urban centre of the seat," Eli says, gesturing out towards the town of Kendal from Oxenholme station. The town has a population of 30,000. From here you can see its handful of shopping streets and the residential roads that tail off into the surrounding hills.

"I think a lot of people here do like Farron," says Eli as we jump into a car. "He's a people person; he gets himself out there. He'd make a fantastic local councillor…" It's not the only backhanded compliment I hear about the embattled Lib Dem leader. There's a saying around here that if you open a packet of crisps, Farron will be there to pose for a picture.

Mind you, it's a technique that seems to be paying off. As a woman working at a corner shop puts it, a little more charitably: "He's spent years here putting in the work," meaning he can count on her vote. It's a common sentiment in these parts.

Eli drives me to the town's socialist bookshop – Left On the Shelf – which is also serving as temporary campaign HQ. We pick up posters and boxes filled with food and make for The Foyer, a community centre in town.

Inside, five women are dishing up meals on a "pay-as-you-can" basis to a small crowd of diners. The café-come-foodbank has only been open a short time. "People assume this is an affluent area, but we've seen so many people come in over the past five weeks already," explains Helen Pateman, one of the volunteers. I ask which box she'll be ticking in the general election. "I'll be voting Labour, it's the only way to go now. We don't have any choice."

Eli overhears her and smiles. Helen will be in a minority on the 8th of June. In 2015, the Labour candidate here scored just 5.4 percent of the vote.

We have a quick bite and head out on the campaign trail proper, joined by 23-year-old Jordann Catto – who voted Conservative back in 2015 because he "didn't know better" – and Dave Cope from the bookshop, a 65-year-old who was in the the Communist Party of Great Britain until 1991 and joined Labour in 2000.

Eli gets on with knocking on doors, brandishing leaflets and a clipboard. After a few non-answers, an older bloke named Peter answers his door. A floating voter, he says he won't be voting Conservative – "I never have done" – and that while he's Labour at heart he'll probably tactically lend his vote to Tim. It's a story Eli says he's hearing pretty often, as I leave him to give his pitch.

The Conservatives are planning a "Take out Tim" strategy to take out the Lib Dem leader and give themselves a high profile scalp. Forty-five percent of people in the seat backed Brexit, and Tory advisors are hoping to mobilise them against the pro-EU incumbent. I wonder if Eli's efforts will perversely end up aiding that strategy. "Tim's hardly that progressive now, is he?" Eli says, when I ask why there's been no "progressive alliance" here. "On issues like abortion, Farron's views couldn't be further from ours."

The rain falls heavily, dampening both the team's spirits and leaflets, so we take cover in a nearby pub. "I'll sometimes introduce myself and someone will laugh a little bit," Eli says over a pint. "They'll ask, 'What about your A-levels? What about school?' I just say it's not like the Conservative candidate hasn't got a full-time job, but you won't get people asking him if he's neglecting his farm and his sheep."

Eli's an articulate politician despite his years. His motivations, meanwhile, are age-appropriate. "The implementation of the national education service is something that I'm particularly pleased to see in the manifesto," he says. "I've fought for it within the Labour Party – the idea we can have an education service free at the point of use from preschool to death, from cradle to grave, is invaluable." On Sunday, Labour pledged to scrap all tuition fees from 2018.

Eli joined Labour – following in his mother's footsteps – towards the end of 2015. I had been expecting to meet a full-on Corbynista, but unlike a lot of young people who've recently joined Labour, Eli was at first critical of the now Labour leader. "I guess before the election I wasn't that impressed with [Corbyn] as a politician," he says. "But now I think the policies in the manifesto are spot on, and he's stepped up in this general election. He's made the transition brilliantly. I'm behind him 100 percent."

As the drizzle starts up again Eli begins chatting to a woman with a Lib Dem sign in her front garden, so I say my goodbyes and head back across town.

Ultimately, I can't help but feel Eli knows he's fighting a losing battle – one of thousands of candidates running in safe seats up and down the country, working flat-out with no chance of success. But he sees it as playing the long game. "Yes, when you walk down an entire street and everyone says they're not going to vote for you it can be frustrating," he says, "but at one stage the Liberal Democrats were nothing round here. No seat started out safe."

"We might not win this time, or the next, or the next. It could be a Labour seat one day, and I want to have played my part," he adds – after acknowledging that his campaigning stint won't look bad on his CV either.

@MikeSegalov / @aparperis91