Professor Sir Bernard Crick (1929-2008) was a British political theorist, and democratic socialist. As well as being a career academic he was the author of many books focused on democracy and socialism, and the editor of Hansard and the Political Quarterly . He was also an advisor to Neil Kinnock's labour party in the 1980s, and also to the SDLP in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Working for his former student, Home Secretary David Blunkett, he created a cross party framework that ended in the Crick Report, which brought 'citizenship' onto the National Curriculum He was knighted for this work. His doctoral thesis was published as The American Science of Politics (1958), and as well as George Orwell's biography (1980), he authored In Defence of Politics (1962). Originally teaching at the London School of Economics, he then spent some time teaching at Harvard University, and was Professor of Politics at both Sheffield University and Birkbeck University.