Table of contents for 11/10/2025 in The Big Issue

→ This special Food Issue brings back to me my troubled dietary history. I was not breastfed, as my mother preferred that the marketplace provide me with the liquor of life. We know babies of all species need milk but the one I imbibed was cow’s milk – probably provided by my father who was a milkman. He had a horse and cart, and the horse was called Dobbin. But added to my milk, which I loved, was tea and sugar. That this milk was given to me for my first two years, and that nearly eight decades later I still remember the experience, is often questioned by doubters. But I stick to my story that, from probably 18 months, I have strong memories from among the blackened houses of…

This Wigan community is fighting back against those profiting from hardship → “There’s profit in food poverty, and that’s what’s so sad about it,” says Keely Dalfen. “I just want everybody to be able to go to a supermarket and be able to shop like everybody else, and there not be a two-tier system.” Dalfen runs The Brick anti-poverty charity in Wigan which supports people through homelessness, financial hardship and crisis. Her role gives her a front-row seat to the crisis of food insecurity. But not everyone suffers. “Supermarkets are making money out of food poverty. People are going into big supermarkets and buying things like tins of beans and putting them in the baskets at the end of the till.” Dalfen’s team at The Brick ran a food bank…

→ On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me an incredible print that helps raise money for Big Issue. This year 12 acclaimed artists have come together to support Big Issue with an exclusive collection of limited-edition prints, including Chris Levine, Jake Chapman, Sara Pope, Pure Evil and Bake-Off’s Noel Fielding. This piece, one of several by Fielding, is called Bob Dylan ‘Rolling Thunder’. Deck The Walls has been curated by artist-led fine art publisher, studio and gallery Jealous, with 50% of the profits from each sale supporting Big Issue’s mission to end poverty in the UK. Turn the page to read about the inspirations behind the art.…

Growing up in Dublin in the mid-1980s, my encounters with punk were limited to fleeting glimpses of mohawks and pierced ears congregated in St Stephen’s Green on Saturday afternoons. My sister and I would be shepherded past on our way to the playground, my mum hissing, “For god’s sake don’t look at them!” as if we might be corrupted by proximity. I had no idea what punk meant, but those early stolen glances sparked a lifetime of fascination. DJ, writer and cultural instigator Chris Sullivan writes in Punk: The Last Word that “punk stands for rebellion, individuality, self-determination, the rejection of nonsensical authority and doing whatever ‘it’ may be for you, without trying to impress or kowtow”. Although he is generally more affiliated with the New Romantic era, Sullivan helped…

↓ GET IN TOUCH The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissueuk @bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK thebigissue ISSUE 1691 What is the value of a politician’s promise? @blackwood57.bsky.social MY WORLD AS I FIND IT Send us your image, or photo you’ve captured, of Britain today with a brief description. On socials or email letters@bigissue.com Peasant dreams I may not have two master’s degrees in Medieval Studies, but I am a medieval peasant who has survived many hundred winters [Issue 1690, 27 October-02 November]. Your article is wrong to claim that in winter there is no work to do on the land and all we have to do is sit around writing letters to each other and reading the Bible. Ploughing for winter wheat begins early in…

When I was 16 I knew I wanted to try and get into art college. So art was a fairly big preoccupation. I think I was also very interested in playing football on the street. I was maybe starting to get out of my tree-climbing days around then. I remember reading the news and being aware of things that were happening in the world, but not really having an opinion on them, and being a bit worried by that, not knowing who I really was. My dad told me everybody becomes themselves at a certain point, it’s OK to be closed for renovation for a time. I wasn’t a rebellious teenager, because my mum was very ill. She had MS, so we had to look after her a lot. I…

Cem Yildiz had to close his vegan restaurants. But he still thinks he’s won, in a way. In September, Yildiz shut the last of his What the Pitta restaurants, which had served vegan kebabs for almost a decade, spanning Manchester, Brighton and London. As news of the closures spread on social media, it brought genuine sadness from customers. But was What the Pitta the victim of the widely heralded anti-vegan backlash? “Honestly, I think it’s very tough, if not impossible, to run a vegan-only fast casual restaurant nowadays. Many independents across hospitality are struggling too. Our high streets risk becoming nothing but Prezzo and Nando’s,” Yildiz tells Big Issue. “I think vegan restaurants still won in a bigger way. They might’ve lost the battle to stay in business, but they…

Om 136.1 Hz By Chris Levine “The image literally resonates with the calming Om frequency 136.1hz. It’s a laser projection generated by that tone. We need more Om in our lives. If my art can be put to compassionate use I’m all for it. Peace out.” Mates for Life By Alma Singer “I’ve chosen Mates for Life as it’s one of my favourite images. Unlike a lot of my work which is rather self-deprecating, Mates For Life has a positive message – and who doesn’t love flamingos? Originally a crayon, I released a print version with Jealous earlier this year and decided to hand-finish some additional works in crayon for this campaign, so each piece is unique. It also doesn’t include any swearing unlike most of my work, so I…

→ Timing is everything. Or maybe it’s context. One feeds the other, like a metaphysical chicken and egg. As we near the year’s end, timing feels to be winning. The one national galvanising moment of 2025 was the return of Oasis. It was a beacon, a moment of rowdy optimism – all those ’90s nights when anything seemed possible bubbled back to the surface in an intergenerational mass summer singalong. All was remembered and then, despite the challenges everywhere, all seemed possible. Fast forward a few months and Radiohead, one of the other totemic acts of the ’90s, are also back together after an indefinite hiatus and playing live to a hungry crowd. Though not on the same scale as Oasis’s globe-covering might, Radiohead’s return is important and vital. A…

Building food security is a goal we can all get behind At core is cost. According to the ONS, when asked about the key important issues impacting Britain today, 89% of Brits said the cost of living. In the most recent ONS figures, until the end of June, nearly two-thirds of people reported the cost of living rose that month. When you drill a little deeper, the reason becomes clear. The most common reason given for feeling it in the pocket remains the price of a food shop – 94% of people say so. That’s nearly everyone. More recent figures don’t show any sign of changing. The Food Foundation, the organisation that’s trying to ensure everybody across the nation has a healthy and sustainable diet – a noble aim –…

In Ben Pester’s debut novel The Expansion Project everything is off. The novel begins with Tom Crowley readying himself and his eight-year-old daughter Hen for “take-your-daughter-to-work day” at Capmeadow Business Park. However, when he arrives at work, he quickly discovers that it isn’t “take-your-daughter-to-work day”, nor has it ever been. Nobody knows what he’s talking about. Soon after, Hen vanishes somewhere in the labyrinthine depths of the business park, raising questions about whether Tom brought her there at all. Deeply surreal and satirical, Pester’s debut is a James Herbert-inflected dismantling of office culture and corporate sprawl. As we descend further into its rabbit hole, the novel gradually reveals itself not as a straightforward prose narrative, but as a collection of interview transcripts annotated by a mysterious “archivist” in the far…

I’m getting a bit concerned that Celebrity Traitors – which will soon dramatically conclude over a steaming hot bowl of fire on a patio – is going to ruin me for the regular civilian Traitors. Will it be like filling up on bread before a meal and having no appetite for the main course? I mean, how can regular Joes compete with Joe Marler – a man with a head like an Etruscan urn who emanates such jovial sweetness that he makes even Stephen Fry look like a conniving, craven bastard? Surely it would take some kind of supercharged combo of Linda (S3) and Diane (S2) to even get close to the wise-owl charm and farty breeziness of Celia Imrie. And say what you like about Alan and Jonathan, but…

I’ve got bowel cancer. It’s just a case of waiting to see what comes of this → I was a chef up until 2006 when I got run over. I got knocked off my bike and for 18 months I was injured. I had stopped and a jeep pulled up behind me and hit me, but my bag saved my head from hitting the ground. My tailbone was the first thing that hit the ground and that was it. I couldn’t go back to work so they paid me off. I had been a chef since I was 16 and worked in kitchens. I spent eight years in London. I came back, went to college and left. I spent a year and a half in Dortmund in Germany. And then…