There is plenty of debate across the political spectrum about how unrepresentative of the overall population our elected politicians are.
Much of this discussion focuses on the lack of women and BAME people in the corridors of power.
This is, of course, a necessary debate because there are too many white men in positions of power. All our remaining MPs fall into that category.
Labour appear to be ahead of us in addressing gender and ethnicity issues in their party, but they have missed something.
They have increased the number of female and black MPs, but they have come largely from privileged or professional backgrounds.
The overall number of MPs who have been manual workers has fallen in recent years – probably because our decline as an industrial nation has meant miners and steelworkers don’t get into Parliament like they used to.
The ageing Dennis Skinner and Ronnie Campbell, who sit together on the Labour benches, are all that is left of what used to be a large group of NUM sponsored MPs.
Former blue collar workers are so rare at the top of the Labour party that former postman, Alan Johnson, joked in an interview that he felt distinctly out of place when his cabinet colleagues discussed their respective 2:1’s, which I believe is some sort of university grade.
Alan probably thought it was the QPR result!
So where are the blue collar Liberals?
Well, I consider myself to be one, having worked in a number of low paid jobs including as a postman for a number of years prior to becoming a full-time trade union official. I want to see more people with my background in our party.
I also want to see people from that background, or similar, recognised as an under-represented group in this party.
We need to get a lot more ‘Blue collar Liberals’ on board to help the Lib Dem Fightback.
* David Warren is a Lib Dem campaigner and a very small stakes gambler!