University honours children’s campaigner and politician
ONE of the country’s outstanding political figures was honoured in Liverpool yesterday alongside a leading children’s campaigner and broadcaster.
Liverpool-born Lord Bill Rodgers, one of the Gang of Four who founded the Social Democratic Party, was presented with an honorary fellowship from John Moores University.
He was joined on the Rankin Steps of the Anglican Cathedral by Esther Rantzen, president of Childline and an NSPCC trustee.
Lord Rodgers, wearing full robes, was honoured for his contribution to politics, a career which might never had been if he had found a job reporting for the Liverpool Daily Post.
Born in Wavertree in 1928, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Allerton where he became interested in politics.
When Labour took the majority of seats in the city he joined the party and famously heckled Tory politicians in Liverpool during the 1945 general election.
After graduating from Oxford in 1951, he was keen to enter the world of journalism and applied for a reporting job with the Daily Post but was turned away.
This led him to leave Liverpool and he took his first job in the Fabian Society, becoming the youngest ever general secretary in 1953.
He married the late Silvia Szulman and first entered the House of Commons in 1962 serving under Labour’s Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.
Highly effective within the party of liberal causes, but disillusioned with the anti-European Labour party lurching to the left he became one of the Gang of Four.
Joining Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins and David Owen, he formed the Social Democratic Party in 1981, which later merged with the Liberal Party creating the Liberal Democrats.
In 1992, he was made a life peer, adopting the title of Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank and became spokes- man and leader for the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords.
Speaking from the cathedral, he said: “I’d been on the dole for six weeks when I applied for a reporting job, but the editor didn’t give me a job.
“My father used to read the Post every day and I can still picture the front page of the Thetis submarine disaster and the mining disaster in Wrexham.
“I love Liverpool, I’ve been in London for 60 years now but I still love the city. This Capital of Culture year has been a great success despite the critics and I’m delighted to be joining JMU.”
A jubilant Esther Rantzen, who has visited the city twice already this year for the launch of Everton’s NSPCC Hargreaves Centre and a £1m appeal to open James Bulger House, said the fellowship was marvellous.
She said: “Today has been rather grand and marvellous and we get to keep these colourful robes.
“JMU validate our volunteers call training at the Hargreaves centre and many have passed through the university, which we are grateful for.
“I also gave a Roscoe lecture last year to a very exciting and stimulating audience which I really enjoyed.
“There are many connections I have with Liverpool.
“Aside from the Hargreaves Centre we have launched the James Bulger anti-bullying project.
“It’s wonderful to be here today.”
