Career
He is a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and of Scottish independence. He was professor of social administration at Bath university. He left the university and moved with his family to the Southdown council estate in Bath in 1976.
He moved to the estate in 1987.
He declined the award of an Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2012 "for services to the community in Easterhouse, Glasgow" as an opponent of the inherited monarchy. He said the royal honours system was designed to promote differences of status to which he was opposed.
He was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in the summer of 2015.