WORD will now have reached most people in Oxford about Bernie Sanders, the US presidential hopeful nipping at the heels of Hilary Clinton.

But they may not realise the Vermont senator’s brother lives much closer to home.

Based in an unassuming terraced house in East Oxford, Larry Sanders is a former social worker, legal adviser and activist who only recently stepped back from frontline county council politics with the Green Party.

Now the 80-year-old is trying to do his bit for his brother’s campaign, even though he’s separated physically from it by the Atlantic Ocean.

He is promoting ‘Oxford for Bernie’, one of five campaigns set up in the UK to encourage Americans living abroad to back Sanders-the-younger, who is reported to be taking the youth vote by storm with his signature firebrand style and socialist views.

“Bernard has come from nowhere, but he has fought the most effective political machine in America to a draw,” Larry says, smiling.

Mr Sanders is referring to the result of the Democratic Party presidential caucus in Iowa on Monday, the first in a series of battles between politicians to win the Democratic nomination for president.

His 74-year-old brother Bernie fought Mrs Clinton to the wire, with the final result seeing him lose by a whisker-thin 0.2 per cent.

The American media says the “virtual tie” has left the Clinton campaign shaken and opened up the Democratic race, after the former Secretary of State’s comfortable lead in the polls evaporated at the ballot box.

Mr Sanders believes his younger sibling is now “on the way up”, adding: “Coming out of the Iowa race, Bernard now has the support to go all the way. What he has done is amazing. Even if he weren’t my brother, I would still admire him as a great man. But as his brother, I am also very proud.”

Although he previously spoke to his brother fortnightly, on Sundays, Bernie’s commitment to the campaign trail now makes this more difficult. Instead, they now communicate mostly by email.

He puts the success of the ‘Bernie 2016’ campaign partly down to the rise of social media which “is a way he can communicate with millions of people”, as well as the ability to use the internet to raise campaign funds through small donations.

The Bernie campaign reportedly brought in more than $20m (£13.7m) in January alone, largely from contributions of $27 on average.

“Without that capacity, it would not have been possible for him to run,” Mr Sanders added.

The grandfather-of-four, who first came to Oxford at the end of the 1960s with his late first wife Margaret, is passionate about campaigning on social and health care issues in Oxfordshire, but has not had the same kind of political success as his brother.

After moving to the city he took up work as a social worker, but became a legal adviser, eventually for Oxfordshire Community Care Rights, after resuming a law degree at Harvard University during his 50s.

He had originally been studying there in his early 20s but the death of his mother caused him to drop out.

enator Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane acknowledge the crowd as he arrives for his caucus night rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday

A chance meeting with the university’s dean while visiting his brother in the States rekindled his interest.

Using his expertise, he helped social care users fight for their right to night care during the 90s, when cuts to services were made.

He said: “It was a really dreadful time. People still had the right to care, but the funding had been withdrawn.

“They didn’t realise they were entitled to it, so people who got advice from people like me were able to get their care back after threatening to take social services to court.”

Mr Sanders, who now lives with his wife Janet Hall in Bedford Street, retired in 2001 and soon after stood as a Green Party candidate for Oxfordshire County Council.

He lost, but was eventually elected councillor for East Oxford in 2005 and was re-elected in 2009.

He led the Green group from 2005 to 2013 and stood as its parliamentary candidate in last year’s General Election as well, losing to Conservative MP Nicola Blackwood.

Larry and Bernie Sanders as children

Although having since stepped down, he still feels passionately about the cuts currently being made in Oxfordshire: “Human life can never just be a bed of roses, but I see no real reason why, in a rich country like this one, we should have so much poverty.

“There are elderly people in this county who have to choose between heating their homes and how much they will spend on food.

“Bernie is very good at channelling that anger and knows how to make a big impact.

“I feel it, but am not able to express it in the same way.

“The question Bernard is asking Americans is ‘why does it need to be like this?’ And he is right.”

He is quietly optimistic that the winds of change may also not be so far away.

“Twenty years ago I could not have predicted we would have legalised gay marriage, so I think Bernard is right when he says sometimes things do happen from below that upend the establishment and its power.”

For information about the UK campaign, visit facebook.com/bernie4london