MP David Lammy reveals he suffered from 'massive imposter syndrome' when he first started in politics

As a prominent and successful social campaigner, David Lammy comes across confidently – whether it’s speaking up in Parliament about the injustices faced by the Windrush generation or calling on Oxbridge to improve access for those from disadvantage backgrounds.

However, it wasn’t always that way – in fact, starting out as a young politician, Lammy said he felt like an imposter. Speaking on the White Wine Question Time podcast, he said it was hard being working class in a predominantly upper-class environment.

“I did have a huge imposter syndrome when I came into politics, like a lot of working-class people, a lot of women,” the MP told host Kate Thornton.

“I was not connected in the way that a lot of MPs are. I was not dropping Labour leaflets when I was five. I do not have a union leader as a best chum, and I came in in the era of the Miliband brothers – all these people who had such big connections at work.

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“I was a nobody and so I had a massive imposter syndrome, being a young Black man, junior minister, getting civil servants to do what you asked them to do. It was tough – the media can be brutal!”

Lammy, who wrote about his childhood in his recent book Tribes: How Our Need to Belong Can Make or Break Society, said he was a very sensitive child and is surprised at how he adapted to a life in politics.

“I was a terribly oversensitive kid,” he said. “Any of my teachers or friends will tell you I was. I burst into tears, get very hurt, very upset, very, very quickly.

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“I mean, I can't really believe the guy I've become, because in politics you've got to have a really thick skin and I've acquired the hide of a donkey, but that was not young David Lammy.”

Recalling his time in Peterborough as a choirboy at boarding school, Lammy welled up as he remembered how it differed from his life in London, telling Thornton her questions were making him “quite emotional”.

“A lot of people are pretty down on the city of Peterborough,” he said.

“For me, Peterborough was paradise. It still is – because there were avenues and trees and picket fences. It felt like the States to me!”

The MP for Tottenham says age has helped him get over his imposter syndrome and he is finally comfortable with who he is.

“I've stopped becoming – I've become,” he said.

“It doesn't mean I can't learn anything, but you know what I mean – I'm very secure in my own skin, what I stand for. I'm not looking for public approval.

“I spent a long time on the back benches and loved every second of it.

“It's great being on the front benches and I want Keir Starmer to do very well, but I'm not in the business of just sort of crawling up the greasy pole!”

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Lammy credits his wife and financial security for making him shed the anxiety of his younger years, and also says he’s happy with his “middle” politics, even if some people don’t agree.

“I haven't really ever been comfortable with extremism, whether it's on the left in my own party or whether it's on the right,” he told Thornton.

“It's become a very dirty word to be in the centre – you're a centrist – but my politics is definitely somewhere between Tottenham and Peterborough, which puts me definitely in the centre-left ground of the political spectrum.

“And I'm very, very comfortable there!”

Hear David Lammy talk about his hopes for the future now a vaccine has been found and why he thinks Joe Biden will make a great president on this week’s White Wine Question Time. Listen now on iTunes and Spotify.

Watch: David Lammy says Joe Biden has empathy in spades