With a Ph.D. in Medical Biochemistry from Birmingham University, Rodney held several research fellowships and was honorary NHS senior biochemist.  He made a landmark contribution to public health, influencing Bibby to supply farmers with rape seed of low toxicity, and consulted on European food safety regulations. His training led to an everyday ethic of evidence-based reporting and conclusions.

His lifelong interest in human rights and international relations started in 1954 when, aged 14, he took part in an Anglo-German reconciliation exchange. He combatted racial prejudice in Birmingham, and representing the United Nations Association, successfully lobbied the Labour Party to bring forward the Race Relations Act of 1965.  He moreover struck a strong rapport with the Birmingham Evening Mail to counteract the effects of Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech of 1968.

As a result of this work, particularly among youth, he switched career to school and college teaching, becoming active with the teachers’ union (NASUWT), where he was effective in lobbying for changes in Health and Safety (H&S) legislation regarding bullying and interpersonal relationships.

For about 39 years, Rodney was active with the Liberals and then the Lib Dems, serving as a parish councillor and branch chairman in Devon. However, he twice discontinued membership over the last decade, firstly over student fees, and more recently due to the party leadership’s statements about ‘antisemitism’.  Here he found them denigrating Labour and Corbyn with evidence-lite accusations, and censoring debate about this topic on the party’s discussion forums. 

Rodney is partly Jewish and is appalled by the weaponisation of antisemitism accusations for political purposes. Before leaving the Liberal Democrats he worked alongside Jonathan Coulter and others to hold the party to higher standards of integrity in this domain. Both now recognise this problem as too large to be dealt with internally within the Liberal Democrats and have joined with people of other political persuasions to address it as a national problem through the work of CAMPAIN. Rodney was Chair of CAMPAIN until early 2023.