Lord John Bird, Founder of The Big Issue: ”The only way you can get out of the sticky stuff is by devoting yourself”

"I never felt sorry for a homeless person in my life. You've got to use that energy trying to sort them out..."

Lord John Bird is the founder of The Big Issue — the revolutionary street magazine which turned 30 last year. Lord Bird’s story is fascinating. He grew up in one of the roughest slums in London, was homeless at the age five, and found himself in and out of prison several times before the age of 18. (It was here, in fact, that  he first encountered a printing press.) Today, the Big Issue is the world’s most distributed street paper — a project that has given millions of homeless people not just a solid income, but also a way back into society — and Bird himself is a hugely respected member of the House of Lords. In a brilliant episode of the podcast, he takes us on a journey from the slums of Notting Hill to the highest chambers in the land — via the tumultuous and sometimes raucous early days of the Big Issue, the new pressures of the pandemic, and an inside view on the political climate of the moment.