I was born and raised in mid-Cheshire, the descendant of Lancastrian recusant Catholics, Irish migrants to Liverpool, and farmers from North Wales. You can read more about my adventures in genealogy here. I live in Greater Manchester with my wife and two children. I enjoy cycling and cooking. I am a supporter of Everton Football Club.
Academic Life – I have a B.A. in Politics and Philosophy from Keele University (2004-2007) and an M.A in Political Philosophy (the idea of toleration) from the University of York, where he was awarded a C & J.B. Morrell scholarship (2007-2008). I studied for my PhD (“The Prospects for Sufficientarianism”) in the Philosophy department at the University of Warwick (2008-2011). Shortly after submitting my PhD, I took up the position of Early Career Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick, where I worked on a project on Social Justice and Children. In January 2012, I was appointed Lecturer in Political Theory in Politics at the University of Manchester. For the academic year 2013/14 I held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University, where I worked on a Spencer Foundation funded project on “Equality of Opportunity and Education”. In 2016 my first book Just Enough: sufficiency as a demand of justice was published by Edinburgh University Press. Since January 2015 I have been PhD Admissions and Recruitment Tutor, overseeing PhD admissions and funding for Politics. In May 2018 I was promoted to the position of Senior Lecturer in Political Theory. Since September 2025 I have been the Teaching and Curriculum Coordinator overseeing workload and teaching allocation in one of the largest Politics departments in the UK.