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About a decade ago I went to see a BBC boss about news reading opportunities.

She told me my CV was good but the trouble was ‘I wasn’t from an under represented demographic’.



I was reminded of that exchange when I read the comments of BBC Breakfast presenter Steph McGovern, who spoke about being paid less than some of her colleagues because she wasn’t posh and had a strong Middlesbrough accent.



Steph’s point was that while organisations and businesses are getting better at monitoring gender, race and disability inequality, many top jobs are still blind when it comes to class inequality.





(Image: BBC)

I’m proud of my Bradford roots, but growing up with no money wasn’t easy.

I remember the stigma of standing in a different queue for free school meals and staying away from school on wear-your-own-clothes days.

I left school with ok grades, but got a place at university, an opportunity that changed my life.



When I went to work for the BBC after university, I remember being very aware of my outsider-status, so many of my colleagues had gone to Oxbridge or the same private schools.

I don’t begrudge any of them the opportunities they had, they were talented and hardworking people, I just want those opportunities to be available for all.



We talk a lot about smashing glass ceilings and rightly so, but let’s not forget those that can’t even get their foot in the door of the building.



(Image: Phil Harris/Daily Mirror)



Still today over half of top journalists went to private school, compared with just 7% of the population.

Another top profession, the Civil Service, has recently started to monitor the background of its fast-stream graduates and found that just 4% are from working class households.

Politics is no better - 87% of MPs are UK university graduates and one in ten MPs went to just one school – Eton.



There’s as much talent in a council estate as a country estate, it just hasn’t been liberated.

Take my constituency in Ashfield – our schools are filled with talented kids wanting to make a mark and make a difference, but we have one of the lowest university participation rates in the country.

Just 9% of kids on free school meals in Ashfield make it to University, compared to 22% of kids in a similar position nationally. Action to help more working class kids into top jobs includes more routes in for those who haven’t been to university.

The Civil Service and BBC have offices and studios across the country they could be offering work experience in, that can open their doors to students from communities like mine.



This matters; if kids like those in my constituency don’t hear people reading the news, or speaking in Parliament who sound like them, the message this sends is – it’s not your world, you won’t fit in, do something else.

I don’t want to live in a country like that, and as a Labour MP it’s my job to fight class discrimination until we don’t have to.