IN the new intake of MPs to the House of Commons, less than three per cent come from working class, manual backgrounds.

The steep decline in MPs of working class origin began in the 1980s under Thatcher and Kinnock, but has gone on uninterruptedly ever since, regardless of 13 years of Labour Government under Blair and Brown from 1997-2010.

It is far from accidental that the decline of working-class representation in the House of Commons has coincided with a dramatic shift in wealth from the working class to the capitalist class, the evisceration of public services upon which the working-class depend and the dismantling of the welfare state.

More evidence of the gulf between Labour Party and the working class it purports to speak for is shown in the "calibre" of those standing to replace Corbyn as leader.

Both Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry are millionaires.

Starmer lives in a house in Kentish Town, London worth almost £2m. He bought it in 2004 for £650,000.

Thornberry has a title, "Lady Nugee," because she is married to a High Court Judge, Sir Christopher Nugee.

The pair have a property portfolio said to be worth £4.6m.

Unless and until Labour MPs start looking, sounding, and sharing the conditions of life of working-class people in Britain, its disconnection from them will continue, and so will its failure to win elections.

James Roberts, Wallasey