Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington

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.