Michael Young

“an author of Labour’s famous 1945 election manifesto, this is the man who created the Consumers’ Association, the Open University and more than 50 other public initiatives and charities for a dizzyin…”

“He was secretary of the policy committee of the Labour Party and drafted the manifesto not only for 1945, but also for 1950.”

“He part company with Labour in 1951, having failed to persuade the party of the usefulness of his idea for a consumer advisory service.”

“In the case of the Consumer Advisory Association, later to become the Consumers’ Association, Young went ahead and set it up by himself, producing, in 1955, the first issue of a magazine that was lat…”

“I wrote a report on fog lamps and electric heaters,” Young remembers – but, although about 200 journalists attended his initial press conference, there was not a single word about his new magazine in…”

“We had only £60 when we started,” he says.”

“By the end of three months, we had 10,000 members; by the end of six months, we had about 500,000.”

“I thought it was quite wrong that, for more or less six months of the year, the Cambridge facilities were not used for teaching students.”

“In 1963, the National Extension College began as a pilot project, paving the way for the Open University itself, which was founded six years later.”

“The school takes around a hundred students a year, usually older than school leavers and with high levels of energy and persistence, and a “tendency to relish uncertainty, change and new ideas”.”

“The school started in London, but now has branches in Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow.”

“Yet, so far, according to Young, all he’s seen from the government has been “a lot of talk but no real action”.”

“He would like ministers to encourage the study of social entrepreneurship in colleges and universities, and to establish a central fund that could help with starting up new enterprises.”