Table of contents for 11/18/2024 in The Big Issue

It started as a revolutionary act. Back in 1991, the very idea of a publication being sold on the streets of Britain by the homeless and the dispossessed, the poorest and those falling through society’s cracks, was thought doomed from the start. That this title would be bought by those who sell it for half the cover price, so that they earn and immediately have agency in their own lives, only compounded the belief that it would never work. Big Issue founders John Bird and Gordon Roddick were not easily put off. The magazine they launched in 1991 remains true to the establishing ideals. A hand up, not a hand out. A title beyond the mainstream, seeking solutions not carping from the sides, with hips and a steely campaigning focus…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue Look no further Forget Labour’s manifesto platitudes, question the priorities in the King’s Speech and, definitely, wait and see if Rachel Reeve’s first budget heralds a pathway to genuinely affordable homes. If you want a blueprint for a solution to the UK’s housing crisis, look no further than Big Issue’s 24-page Housing supplement [Issue 1639, 28 October-3 November]. It recognises that Housing is “the crisis of our times”, and promotes a number of possible solutions. Labour has promised ‘big’: to build 1.5 million homes. But numbers on their own are not enough. What Labour has not explained in detail is how it will deliver all these new homes. Big Issue’s supplement…

Scottish author Ali Smith’s latest novel Gliff is another magnificent book to be treasured. Set in all-too familiar Britain, Gliff is narrated by Briar/Brice, a whip-smart teenager of no defined gender. Briar and their little sister Rose are made unexpectedly homeless and parentless, a process beginning when they find a red border drawn around their house. As they eventually discover, the surveillant government has demarcated their family as ‘Unverifiable’ – as it does anyone who falls outside of its recognised parameters – especially the poor and the placeless. Smith encapsulates the intensity of sibling relationships, and the ability of kids to call bullshit, as Briar and Rose attempt to escape the clutches of the state apparatus. They encounter comrades on the way, from horses set for abattoiring, to others who…

The waitress is inviting me to dance. I accept her outstretched hand and make a feeble attempt at some swing moves, which others around me appear to be adopting. It looks more like I’m doing the floss (badly) and luckily I am returned to my chair before further humiliation arises. My fleeting – and now fleeing – dance partner is wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Adina’s’ in a friendly cursive font. All waiting staff are dressed thus, and a neon sign above my table further underlines the restaurant’s name. My fellow diners are all wearing the same anticipatory expression: delight tinged with mild apprehension. That’s because the bar is a set – and we, the audience, are on-stage among the cast. This is Wexford Festival Opera’s community production of Donizetti’s…

HOMELESSNESS A council row over out-of-area placements shows how the temporary accommodation crisis is now a matter of life and death By Laura Cooke A council has expressed concerns that vulnerable homeless people will be cut off from vital support networks while it also criticised a neighbouring local authority for increasing its out-of-area placements. Eastbourne Borough Council says it is “extremely concerned” about the increase in the number of homeless people placed in the town by Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC). It comes after Eastbourne warned it was facing bankruptcy due to the spiralling cost of temporary accommodation. In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, Eastbourne had called Brighton’s decision to house over 130 homeless people in the town without consultation an “unfair burden”. High-level talks between the two…

As the winter nights draw in, our homes become a sanctuary. But they are much more than a place to shelter. A safe and secure home is foundational to a decent life. Yet here we are in 2024 with shocking levels of rough sleeping and record numbers of families with children stuck in temporary accommodation. I know from my own experience of representing an East London constituency the impact of homelessness on children, families and the wider community is absolutely devastating. In England, homelessness is now at record levels. In March this year, more than 117,000 households, including over 150,000 children, were living in temporary accommodation. Let’s call this what it is: a national disgrace. This didn’t happen overnight. It is the result of long-standing neglect. Five years ago, the…

I come from a very stable environment – stable family, loving parents, very middle class. In New Zealand, that means very bog standard, cake stalls, church. But I was desperate to go out and explore. I used to watch planes when I was eight years old, going, I know there’s people on those planes, how can I get on them? I’ve got real wanderlust. I just couldn’t wait to get out. I ran away at 18… hence getting pregnant at 19. For a lot of New Zealanders it’s an expected part of your development that you do your OE [overseas experience]. In those days, it meant coming to London. But I went with no money. It was a stupid plan. I can’t believe my parents let me go. They thought…

MICHAEL TURNER, 74 I’ve only been back in the country since December last year. I worked all over the place: Russia, China, India, West Africa working in oil. I had money but the divorce took a lot of that. That and a hedonistic lifestyle: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. I was on the street in January and most of February. I survived there but it was very challenging on the street. During the day, we’re still out walking around trying to keep warm. A lot of people sleep during the day and are around at night and that tends to be people who have severe challenges with drugs and alcohol. So you can be woken by them asking if you want any drugs and then also being moved on by the…

In an outburst of bad manners I suddenly left the select committee on homelessness and rough sleeping; prematurely, possibly painting me as a brat. I called the meeting a “farce”: hard words for a group of MPs and the chair of the committee to take. But without missing a beat the committee carried on and thanked me for my contribution. I am not so sure if there is a precedent for someone storming out of a select committee evidence-gathering exercise. I was one of four people giving evidence on the increasing emergency of homelessness, and the more pressing presence of rough sleepers on our streets. I made the point that we are always talking about an emergency because we only deal with the emergency as an emergency. That in fact…

Based on the book of the same name, Say Nothing is Disney’s tilt at turning the Troubles into prestige TV. Set against the early days of the conflict in the late 1960s, it begins as the Provisional IRA is upping its campaign against the British state. The series anchors itself in the disappearance of mother-of-10 Jean McConville. One night in 1972, McConville disappeared from her flat in Belfast. Senior republicans Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, two of the series’ central characters, later admitted involvement in McConville’s kidnapping and murder, and the IRA went on to claim she had passed information to British forces. Both said Gerry Adams ordered the disappearance. A 2014 investigation into McConville’s death saw police arrest Adams and question him for four days, but did not charge…

Thank you, Zack Snyder. It’s not very often you get to express that sentiment to the impassioned but wearyingly bombastic director of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Watchmen and – most recently – a sprawling two-movie space opera for Netflix. But it was when hovering over the play button for Snyder’s Rebel Moon Chapter One: Chalice of Blood – a weirdly renamed and apparently more bloody version of Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire – that I realised it had ballooned to 204 minutes long. Jeepers, I thought, that feels like another nod to Seven Samurai (which clocks in at 207 minutes but thoughtfully includes a five-minute intermission). Then I felt a flush of shame, having never actually gotten around to watching Akira Kurosawa’s…

The recent US presidential election was the first to be decided by content creators. While Kamala Harris enjoyed the public support of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, Trump had something that turned out to be a great deal more powerful: the endorsement of Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, Theo Voss, Adin Ross and someone who calls himself ‘The Undertaker’. You might not have heard of all of these people, but they command audiences of millions via their YouTube channels and podcasts. Unlike mainstream stars of legacy media, their audiences are made up of acolytes who engage with them not as mere entertainers but as gurus. These men sell a worldview to their largely male audience. That worldview is a broadly conservative one, laced with provocative ‘humour’ and righteous anger. This is content…