Hello, all welcome to Coffee House Shots, and today I'm joined by Tom Gordon, who's the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Marsborough.

Now, Tom, over the recess, you've been putting your time to good use, and you proposed setting up a working-class task force because of an encounter with your mother. Tell us more. Yeah, so I went back home to my original hometown, an ex-mining town in West Yorkshire, where I got my mum elected as a councillor a few years back. And we were just talking about how we try to get more people involved in politics. through there there's three lib Dems or there were three lib Dems now two because one of them is defected

to be an independent. Shame on him. But it was talking about how we actually connect with people on the ground and in those communities. You know, every community, even my own has working class areas, places like Starbucks and Bilton. And at a moment for me, you know, trying to make sure we lift those people up and actually empower them to be part of our politics. And that doesn't just go for my own party, but all parties is sort of something that I feel really passionate about. I'm originally, you know, my mum had me when she was 18, she was a single parent, always worked a minimum wage job.

I, when I was growing up, I don't think anyone ever knocked on my door, no one ever delivered a leaflet. Politics wasn't something that really featured in my life. And, you know, here we are today. So if someone had knocked on my door a bit earlier, maybe I'd have got involved a bit sooner, or just felt more engaged. So it's about trying to make sure we connect with all communities across the country,

rather than just speaking to the people who want... sooner or just felt more engaged. So it's about trying to make sure we connect with all communities

across the country, rather than just speaking to the people who want to speak to us.

I think there's two issues really here when getting people more involved in politics.

One is about class, as you say, and the kind of institutional structural barriers,

some people from less well-off backgrounds in our face. I think the other thing, of course,

is the kind of perhaps professionalisation or sort of in-group tendencies of politics whereby, you know, plenty of stories of say, for instance, when Corby got less than 2015 in Labour and lots of excited new Corbyn people went along, momentum, people signed up and went to these CLPs for their first time, not knowing what the sort of, you know, Dunn Form was.

And they had a couple of bores who went there and sort of absolutely sort of dominates all the air time. And obviously, after that, numbers dropped off. So I suppose the two issues here, Tomas, sort of how do you address those kind of structural issues? And second of all, make it sort of fun and interesting in order to get lots of people, ordinary people, maybe at the time, involved in politics. Yeah, it's a really good point. And I think, you know, we already have some really

good examples of this happening across the country. If you look up to places like Sunderland, where we went from, you know, basically having no councillors only a handful of years ago to now having a decent size group. There's people up there who are sort of proper working class Salt of the Earth guys who are making it happen. So, you know, the sort of project here that I'm setting up is bringing together some of those ideas, figuring out what they've done, and trying to apply it not just to council elections, but also to Westminster too. You know, I can only feel for the people who used to go to these CLP meetings. The Liberal Democrats, we have a lot more for them than what, it sounds like the Labour Party do. I think we're a lot more collegiate. But that's it. It's about making sure that people do feel empowered to be the change in their communities that they want to be and making sure that extends to everyone. You know, one of the things that we're certainly trying to do more of in my patch is if we go out canvassing or delivering leaflets and going to the pub after which is

you know really low bar for entry for people and it's really informal people get a little bit sick

of stuffy politics um you know it's quite funny actually we just saw the Tories were delivering a

newsletter to their members around Harrogate and Nairsborough that we got a copy of and on there was

canapes and champagne with the Lord and I thought crikey that know, if that had come through my door and I'd been a Tory member, even as a working class one, I'd have been like, what on earth? So yeah, I think it's got, we've got to be innovative. There's very upstairs, downstairs, perhaps approach to politics. I think you're totally right about sort of making it kind of lots of different entry points as well because there's a danger isn't there I suppose I mean you you were I imagine

someone who got into politics fairly young, Tom, but once you sort of miss the boat in some ways, people who miss it at school or universities, it can be harder for older people, perhaps, to get into politics as well. Absolutely. I think, you know, for me, I actually joined the Liberal Democrats on the data reason make all the snap general election in 2017.

So that was when I was finishing my master's degree off at university.

And, you know, even then, I felt like, you know, there was people who'd been in those local parties, who'd been candidates, counselors, who'd been there decades. And there was a tendency in all political parties in my experience to say,

well, this is always the way we've done it, or this is how it is,

or well, I know better because I've been here since, you know, whatever year it might be. And I think there's just got to be a bit of brushing that aside and sort of allowing for fresh ideas. And, you know, if we've been brutally honest, if you look at parties like reform that are now sort of set up in a new way, they are speaking to people in a different than usual manner. They don't necessarily have that same preconception and notion of what

a political party is. I think there's definitely lessons that can be learned. I definitely think

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