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​Leading Labour moderate Tristram Hunt gives a speech to the Fabian Society tomorrow urging the party to focus on its "moral mission" of tackling inequality. Writing exclusively for MirrorPolitics, he calls on colleagues to be "bolder and braver" - and start talking about Britain's class divide.

Labour’s win in Oldham last week was a massive boost for the party.

The simplistic anger of UKIP was rejected as voters showed their overwhelming support for our local candidate, Jim McMahon.

But Labour should always win in towns like Oldham. And I know from my own constituency in Stoke-on-Trent that we still have a job to do to show we can connect with working-class communities in the North and Midlands.

That is why I believe we need to return to Labour’s moral mission: reducing inequality.

Britain is a deeply divided nation – so much so that it often feels like the people at the top live in a different world to ordinary working people. That is not the Britain I want.

When I was Shadow Education Secretary I saw young children from deprived backgrounds starting school barely able to talk: physically smaller from a poor diet; suffering distress at home.

They had so far to go to catch up with the kids who had a better start in life. It felt like you could actually see the disadvantage being handed down the generations.

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For decades Labour has tried to overcome this injustice by dealing with financial poverty; and clearly money matters – a lot.

But social justice is about more than just pounds and pence. It is also about parenting, family breakdown, better homes, stronger communities, social networks, access to culture, health and wellbeing, tackling crime and abuse.

Talking about class would capture this wider story. It would make us think much harder about how privilege sustains itself.

And it can connect in a way that dull statistics never will.

Yet Labour has been too scared to talk about class in recent years. And that must change.

It might sound strange coming from an MP like me who has benefited from the opportunities I had growing up.

But Labour needs to be bolder and braver about tackling inequality, and to do that we have to remember the importance of class. ​