The Lord Young of Dartington | |
---|---|
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
In office 20 March 1978 – 14 January 2002 Life Peerage | |
Personal details | |
Born | Manchester, England | 9 August 1915
Died | 14 January 2002 London, England | (aged 86)
Resting place | Highgate Cemetery, London, England |
Political party | Labour (until 1981; 1989–2002) SDP (1981–88) 'Continuing' SDP (1988–89) |
Spouses |
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Children | 6, including Toby Young |
Alma mater | London School of Economics |
Awards | Albert Medal (1992) |
Michael Dunlop Young, Baron Young of Dartington, PC, HonFBA[1] (9 August 1915 – 14 January 2002), was a British sociologist, social activist and politician. He was an urbanist of different dimensions such as academic researcher, polemicist and institution-builder.[2]
During an active life he was instrumental in shaping Labour Party thinking. When secretary of the policy committee of the Labour Party, he was responsible for drafting Let Us Face the Future, Labour's manifesto for the 1945 general election,[3] was a leading protagonist on social reform, and founded or helped found a number of socially useful organisations. These include the Consumers' Association, Which? magazine, the National Consumer Council, the Open University, the Institute for Community Studies, the National Extension College, the Open College of the Arts and Language Line, a telephone-interpreting business.