Table of contents for 8/11/2025 in The Big Issue

Right To Buy sold us down the river There is a seductive appeal to the three-word political slogan. If it scans, it lands. Take Back Control. Black Lives Matter. Ulster Says No. We Shall Overcome. Make Poverty History. Stop The Boats. They deliver with clarity and imprint an almost immediate, implicit, meaning. Sometimes the phrase defines and leads an entire political ideology. Few, if any, have had such a real-world consequential impact on modern Britain as this one: Right To Buy. Over the last 45 years this core Thatcherite policy, launched with her Housing Act in 1980, has seen at least 1.9 million social homes in England sold to tenants. The average discount was at 44% of market value. It has brought around £51 billion to the exchequer. A report…

It was Friday 13 December – Luca Day in Hungary. The village of Nagyrév, steeped in customs and superstitions, viewed Luca Day as an opportunity to ward off evil forces and manifest plentiful crops. On this day, villagers would perform harvesting rituals, craft, tell fortunes – predicting who would marry and how the weather would turn out. They spread homemade bread, cabbage, and sweet poppy-seed rolls across long, wooden tables. All to honour Saint Lucy, a centuries-old Christian martyr who brought light into darkness. Luca Day was known as the ‘day of witches’. Women were the focus of this folk holiday: seen as both the evil force to guard against, and the ripe source of a healthy harvest. On the Great Hungarian Plain where Nagyrév is situated, witches were deemed…

It is 38 years since I first visited the Edinburgh Fringe. I was a very eager 18-year-old and I loved it all. So many grey corners that were propelled into technicolor for three weeks. It is very different now: vast, overwhelming and, at times, feeling very corporate. I start the festival with skin thinned by four months without a day off. This is not a good thing, as you need extra insulation for the strange psychological mess this intense festival can create. In the first couple of days, I perform to the fewest people I’ve played to on the Fringe for many years and so the fog comes down. I feel bleak and pointless, and as if 34 years of performing have been for nothing. Then I reset my mind…

COMMUNITY Brits don’t trust the government to protect them in a crisis – so communities are doing it for themselves Greg BarradaleBig Issue Senior Reporter A lack of trust in politics is not just a problem for academics and high-minded supporters of democracy as a concept. It’s leading to a lack of faith that the government can do one of its most basic jobs: protect citizens in a crisis. Just 36% of Brits believe the government would support them to rebuild and recover after a crisis. What’s more, some 52% don’t trust the government to be transparent about what it’s doing during a crisis, according to polling from not-for-profit organisation The Young Foundation. In July, the government launched the Resilience Action Plan, which sets out how it will protect the…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissueuk @bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @thebigissue Conference of war After a major, if partial, defeat in parliament over disability cuts, the disability minister Stephen Timms promised the House of Commons that the PIP benefit review would be co-produced by disabled people and their organisations. What does he have in mind? “Ten people.” That’s what he said to the BBC podcast Access All: Disability News and Mental Health on Friday. Timms may believe that the issue of disability cuts will drop from the news cycle by autumn 2026. He may believe that the UK government can avoid scrutiny and sneak through a flawed bill for short-term savings. He will not succeed in attacking disabled people, disabled students,…

At 16 I was most interested in music and boys. I went to the BRIT School. So around 16, it was kind of that transition into, do I want to go to college for music? Or should I think about just leaving and pursuing music on my own? So I was at a bit of a crossroads there. I also was in a relationship with a boy, my high-school sweetheart, and we were just about to break up. That was my first major, major heartbreak. You know when you’re 16, it’s your world. This was everything to me. So that heartache, I just remember it being so raw and very, very hard. I’ve always been very close to my mum and my dad. My mum grew up in a children’s…

ANALYSIS After 20 years, surely it’s time for a Herbie restart? Many of the most enjoyable films ever made require a little suspension of disbelief. But there’s one franchise that routinely has you disbelieving its suspension. From Disney’s The Love Bug (1969) onwards, Herbie the sentient 1963 Volkswagen Beetle with the big round number 53 has cheekily defied both traffic laws and the laws of physics, rearing up on his back tyres and pulling off an extended wheelie like an overpowered drag racer. A very fun visual, sure, but presumably not great for the exhaust. If you haven’t had cause to think of poor Herbie and his rakishly off-centre racing stripe for the past two decades, that’s understandable. It was way back in 2005 that Disney last gave him a…

OPERA Raise your flag Classical music has an unusual problem: flags. Such seemingly innocuous items have the power to incite passionate responses and ignite public debate. The cast member who unfurled a Palestinian flag at the curtain call for the recent run of Il trovatore at the Royal Opera House knew this – it was the reason they stood, unmoved by urgent hissing from the wings, holding the green, red, black and white symbol. As a member of staff unsuccessfully attempted to remove the flag, audience members scrambled to record the subsequent tussle. Footage did the rounds on social media; officials quickly declared the action was unofficial. At the same time, increasingly shocking images of starving children have emerged, and UN agencies warn that much of Gaza is now affected…

Russell T Davies is in his Manchester writing office when Big Issue calls. There is a Bafta on a shelf behind him, alongside hundreds of books. “I’ve read them all, test me!” he booms. This is where the magic happens – a space away from his home in Wales where he goes to write. A window on the city that has been the setting for so many of his greatest works. We are here, officially, to talk about Cucumber, Tofu and Banana. It’s 10 years since Davies launched this audacious, modern and inclusive trio of shows to much fanfare – one big gay Channel 4 drama series, an anthology of LGBT+ character studies on E4, and eight frank-as-fuck documentaries exploring sex. Awards followed, though big audiences failed to materialise. “It’s…

REVIEWS Bad news in a good way The journalist and media critic Mic Wright loves good journalism. As he’s quick to point out in the prologue to Breaking: How the Media Works, When It Doesn’t, And Why It Matters, he has nothing but the utmost respect for the many people within his industry who practise their craft with due diligence and integrity. This book is not about those people. It focuses instead on the small group of powerful moguls who own the news, the journalists who do their bidding, and the many underhand techniques they use. Wright, a freelancer with 20 years of experience, doesn’t overlook the obvious failings of nominally liberal outlets such as The Guardian and the maddeningly ‘balanced’ BBC, but he naturally zones in on the right-wing…

Alex Lawther doesn’t use AI. Or at least he tries not to. “I mean, I use Google on my phone,” the 30-year-old tells Big Issue. “So I do get those AI overview boxes. It’s oftentimes wrong.” The British actor is one of the stars of the new Alien spin-off series, set two years before the original 1979 Ridley Scott film. Lawther plays CJ Hermit, a human soldier whose sister, Wendy, played by Sydney Chandler, gets turned into the first human-synthetic hybrid (an artificial body with an AI-integrated human mind). While the original film franchise focused on the Xenomorph alien as the main threat, Alien: Earth shifts to how humans use artificial intelligence, and how unchecked advancing technology is the biggest threat facing the planet. “The show asks some big questions,”…

Trinity Leeds Every day, 12pm-4pm MARTIN FLAHERTY, 51 I’ve been selling Big Issue since October last year. I escaped a very toxic relationship – mental abuse. You hear about blokes doing all this to women. Unfortunately, this was the other way around. It was best we separated. I got into supported living, but down to trauma bonding I ended up back with my partner. But then she died. It was like part of me was relieved because my abuser can no longer hurt me, but at the same time I was absolutely devastated, because I really did love her so much. My brother was also murdered by one of his friends. He was apparently in a sexual relationship with his friend’s mother, and the next thing we know he has…