The big vision

摘要

'There's nothing wrong with poverty, as long as you can get out of it,' says John Bird, over a cup of coffee in Notting Hill. This now upmarket area was a post-war slum when John was born there, into a large Irish-Catholic family, 71 years ago. Poverty and fighting social injustice are two of John's pet subjects. 'If you can get out of poverty yourself and start working with others who are still in it, you can be quite useful. That is, providing you don't get out of it by robbing other people!' John himself has been no stranger to hardship - or crime. When he was appointed as a peer in February 2016, his maiden speech to the slumbering fellows went along these lines: 'Someone asked me how I got to be a Lord - it was by lying, cheating and stealing.' That woke up his audience.