THERE are many brilliant things about my job but one of the best is that I get to meet and discuss issues with a whole range of interesting and frequently very clever people.

This weekend (before rushing off to catch the rather exciting second half of the Barrow-York match on Saturday afternoon) I was lucky enough to meet with a chap called Dinesh Dhamija. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of him, you are not alone I am sure. However, you will probably have heard of eBookers and Flightbookers, both of which are companies that Dinesh founded before selling out to make himself a very comfortable amount of money to live on in his retirement.

Just before selling he was awarded the title of Entrepreneur of the Year which I suppose highlights the fact that the people who give these awards do know what they are doing.

Dinesh was up in south Cumbria to meet with some Liberal Democrats in the area to discuss what our party can do to help people setting up and running businesses. One of the key points he made was that we need people to feel that it is worth setting up new businesses all the time in this country.

New businesses are where we get new jobs and but also they tend to be where we see the greatest increases in average salaries. As we all know, higher salaries are desperately needed in our part of the world if we are not to become a place inhabited entirely by retired people.

Dinesh pointed out that an area like south Cumbria is stuffed full of opportunities for new businesses, partly because of the ageing population but also because it is a great place for people to come and bring up their families. What needs to happen though is for young entrepreneurs to feel that they are supported when they set up their business.

The reason why Dinesh came up to talk to us in our part of the world was that he did not feel that new entrepreneurs were getting the support they needed from the two main political parties in this country. He said that the Conservative Party was far too interested in supporting large companies, which is almost always at the expense of young small businesses, and the Labour Party is simply not interested in supporting anyone in business at all.

He said that he was interested in the Liberal Democrats because they were the only national political party who were actively looking to support people who wanted to take the risk of starting up a new business. We discussed what more politicians could do to support small businesses, ideas like special support grants, faster broadband, investment in roads and train lines, things that are all being considered in Cumbria, all came up.

I am sure that I was not alone in leaving the session feeling inspired to get more involved in helping (or starting) new businesses in south Cumbria. We need them more than ever and I worry it is only my party that really appreciates this and wants to do something about it.