John Bird (The Big Issue Founder)

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John Bird is the founder of The Big Issue, a newspaper in the United Kingdom that is edited by professional journalists and sold by street vendors affected by homelessness.

Bird was born in Notting Hill, London in 1946. As a child he experienced homelessness and spent several years in an orphanage. By his twenties he had served several prison sentences for theft.^[1]

In September 1991 he launched The Big Issue. He is currently president of The Big Issue Foundation Board of Trustees.^[2]

In June 1995 Bird was awarded the MBE for ‘services to homeless people’.

In March 2007 he announced his intention to stand for election to the post of Mayor of London. He is a former member of the Workers Revolutionary Party but has said that he had not decided whether to run as an independent or with the backing of a political party.^[3]

In an Observer article published in August 2006, Mr Bird said: "I'm middle-class. I got out of the working class as quickly as I could. The working class is violent and abusive, they beat their wives and I hate their culture."