The Rev Paul Nicolson was one of the most remarkable campaigners of our time. Two things stand out. First, standing aside from party politics he focused on issues that most hurt the poorest of the poor. This included a number of unfashionable ones, such as imprisonment for debt and the behaviour of bailiffs. Second, he was tireless in his writing of letters and his willingness to go to prison for the causes in which he believed.
His most remarkable success was devising (with Nicholas Sagovsky), and then achieving wide support for, the concept of a living wage, as opposed to a minimum one. What might have seemed to some at the time a pipe dream has now become widely recognised, in theory if not in practice, as a key benchmark.
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