He attended a grammar school but left at the age of fifteen to train as a bookbinder, going on to be a sales representative for a printing company.
A believer in municipal socialism, he took pride in the improvements to council housing in the city[1] and revealed a cartel fixing the price of cement.
[3] After Labour's defeat in the 1979 general election, Harold Lever, the MP for Manchester Central, was made a life peer, leading to the first by-election of that parliament.
In 1982 he protested to ministers about poor conditions at Strangeways prison and in 1983 he demanded an inquiry into poor-quality tower blocks.
However, he realised that Labour needed to pursue popular policies in order to gain power and that socialists had to co-operate to succeed.