John Bird - Research

Born: 30^th January 1946 (as of today, 79) in Notting Hill, England 

In Office: 7^th December 201 

John Bird is best known as the co-founder of The Big Issue. The Big Issue is edited by professional journalists and sold by street vendors who are largely homeless or vulnerably housed. He sits as an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords. He made his way into the House of Lords by “lying, cheating, and stealing.” In his first speech in the House of Lords, he claimed he would not have risen to the position he is in now if he had not gone through ‘terrible self-defeat'. 

He was born into a poor London Irish family, he became homeless at the age of 5, lived in orphanages from ages 7 to 10. He spent a lot of time in prison during his teen years, where he learned to read, write and the basics of printing. He could not read or write until he was 16 years old. 

When he was asked to describe the treatment/ charity support available to homeless people, he said: “There were 501 organisations in London alone working with the homeless. They supplied you with everything from auricular acupuncture to a place to wash your undies and a shoulder to cry on, but one thing they did not give poor people was the opportunity of making money”. This was most likely because laws around charities prevented organisations from providing opportunity in the form of work. 

He attended Chelsea School of Art and was homeless again by 1967.  

In 1991, Bird launched The Big Issue with Gordon Roddick, co-founder of The Body Shop. Gordon and Anita Roddick made a hug financial investment in The Big Issue, as they had a shared vision of using business as a force for social change. In 1995, he launched The Big Issue Foundation which funded and supported vendors of The Big Issue. 

The Big Issue Group includes: 

• The Big Issue 

• Big Issue Invest 

• Big Exchange 

• Big Issue Recruit 

• Big Issue Media 

• Big Issue Shop 

• Big Futures  

They collectively work to dismantle poverty in the UK. 

He met a homeless man in New York who was selling magazines on the street, and when he approached, asking the man why he was doing this, his reasoning was because he had a drug habit and di not want to steal from old ladies to feed it. 

In 2007, he announced his intention to stand as an independent candidate for Mayor of London. Later that year, he announced that he had “decided to not run for mayor and was instead going to launch a movement to try and do what the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) did over the bomb, but over social injustice.” 

In 2010 he revealed: “My secret is that I’m really a working-class Tory.” In Parliament, Bird speaks on poverty, social enterprise, social mobility, literacy and has once acted as an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Poverty, Ending Homelessness, Social Enterprise, Future Generations, and Libraries. 

He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) award for services to homeless people.  

Bird has published several books, including an autobiography, Some Luck (2002), which recounts his journey from homelessness to founding The Big Issue.  

-Chelsea Horton