Rotheram was born in Liverpool in 1961, the son of Harry Rotheram, a Kirkby factory forklift driver and Labour councillor, and Dorothy, née Phillips. He was one of eight children. His parent's marriage broke up when Rotheram was in his teens, with Rotheram citing his father's absences due to politics as part of the cause. His secondary education was at Ruffwood School in Kirkby.
Career
Rotheram left school at 16 to become a bricklayer, setting up his own company at the age of 22. He spent eight months rebuilding war-torn infrastructure in the Falkland Islands in 1983, an experience that Rotheram did not enjoy. On his return, disillusioned by what he saw as exploitation of employees on UK building sites, he was determined not to work for anyone else again, and set up his own company Rotheram Builders. Alongside his work in the construction industry, he studied part-time in order to gain admittance to John Moores University where he studied full-time before starting a Masters in Contemporary Urban Renaissance at Liverpool Hope University. He worked as a Business Manager for the Learning and Skills Council for many years after graduating, and was elected to represent Fazakerley as a Labour Councillor on Liverpool City Council in the 2002 election. He later served as Lord Mayor of Liverpool from 2008 to 2009, which coincided with Liverpool's period as European Capital of Culture.
Member of Parliament
After incumbent Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle announced that he would be standing down as MP for Liverpool Walton in 2010, Rotheram was overwhelmingly selected to be the Labour candidate securing 101 out of 113 votes cast. At the 2010 general election, Rotheram retained the seat with a comfortable majority of 19,818. Shortly after becoming an MP, he was elected to serve on the Communities and Local Government Committee where he was influential in challenging Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps on a number of key cuts that they were making. In October 2011, Rotheram joined the Culture, Media and Sport Committee where he asked James Murdoch if he would close The Sun newspaper following the News International phone hacking scandal in 2011. He was one of 16 signatories of an open letter to Ed Miliband in January 2015 calling on the party to commit to oppose further austerity, take rail franchises back into public ownership and strengthen collective bargaining arrangements. Rotheram was the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's Parliamentary Private Secretary.
Mayor
In 2016, Rotheram said he intended to stand for the Labour nomination to become Liverpool region metro mayor in the 2017 mayoral election, and was selected as the Labour candidate in August 2016. He announced that he would not seek re-election as a Member of Parliament if successful in the Mayoral Election. Rotheram was subsequently elected mayor in 2017. In September of the same year, he was named at Number 73 in 'The 100 Most Influential People on the Left' by LBC.
Hillsborough disaster
In a speech whilst Lord Mayor of Liverpool on the twentieth anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, he said, "I'm one of the fortunate ones, as I swapped my Leppings Lane ticket for a stand seat 15 minutes before kick-off...if I can go from being a brickie in Kirkby to the Lord Mayor, who knows what these ninety-six people may have achieved in their lives". In October 2011, he gave an emotional speech to the House of Commons where he read out the names of all ninety-six victims in the Hillsborough disaster so they would be recorded in Hansard, and called for the release of all government papers relating to the disaster. The speech later won an award as the Parliamentary Speech of the Year. After the papers were released in September 2012, it became known they showed widespread corruption from South Yorkshire Police, Rotheram called upon Prime Minister David Cameron to issue an apology on behalf of the government, which he later did. Rotheram was the chief organiser of a charity single designed to raise funds to cover the legal costs of the Hillsborough families which attracted the attention of the award-winning music producer Guy Chambers. In September 2012, along with members of The Farm, Mick Jones, and former Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish, Rotheram arranged for a number of artists to record a cover of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" as "The Justice Collective", in an attempt to reach the coveted Christmas number one. The cover included contributions from artists such as Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams, Holly Johnson and Melanie C, as well as featuring Rotheram himself. On 23 December 2012, it was confirmed that the cover had become Christmas number one, which Rotheram called "an honour".
