Table of contents for 04/13/2026 in The Big Issue

HOMELESSNESS Home Office pilot prevented 1,000 refugee households from homelessness – so why not continue it? → Giving refugees 56 days to find an income and a place to live after being evicted from Home Office accommodation prevented an estimated 1,000 refugee households from becoming homeless, Refugee Council has found. The Home Office ran a pilot scheme that extended the move-on period for newly recognised refugees to 56 days, offering them more breathing room to navigate the private rented sector and work with councils to avoid homelessness. But the pilot scheme has ended and the move-on period was reduced to 42 days from 9 March this year. Refugee Council warned that the reduced time for newly recognised refugees to find a new home could see homelessness increase beyond its current…

When the cast of Air Scotia last dropped their landing gear on the runway of cult BBC comedy, things were very different. “That period in the 1990s really was the start of something in Scotland. Five years later we voted for devolution,” says Alan Cumming, surveying the landscape of then and now in the rehearsal room at Dundee Rep Theatre, after breaking from a 31-year holding pattern since the final episode of his much-loved airline comedy The High Life. “Even though it’s a laugh, it’s funny, The High Life was also always about Scotland’s place and the notion of independence.” Wait, what? The High Life? Six episodes created by and starring Cumming and Forbes Masson alongside Siobhan Redmond and Patrick Ryecart? Those quiffs, that hair lacquer, that formation dancing, those…

You’d have thought a protest that lasted 19 years, involved hundreds of thousands of people, achieved its aims through non-violent direct action and was women-only would already be assured of its place in history. If not in the story of women, then surely as a module in a political degree, or on the school curriculum alongside the suffragettes, apartheid, Gandhi and the American civil rights movement. Yet throughout all my research and the many conversations I’ve had since writing Fallout, I’ve only met one – yes, you read that right, one – person under the age of 30 who’d heard of it, and she was a journalist who’d studied politics at university and consciously sought out the missing pieces in the history of British civil disobedience. Even those who knew…

It’s nice when people tell me I am very friendly I started selling Big Issue North in 2012, when I lived in Liverpool. I moved straight from Romania to Liverpool. After more than 10 years over there, I moved to London. I started selling Big Issue here in May last year. I think Big Issue is good for me. It doesn’t cause me stress. No one controls my time and I’m my own boss. My pitch is different to any other pitch in London. I know what time is best to sell because people go to work in the morning and come back home in the evening. Sometimes I have regular customers. I sell because for me it’s very good. I’m new to London. I know it’s too expensive to…

→ A food poverty charity has warned it’s seeing the impact of the US-Iran war on families in the UK who were already “struggling to put food on the table”. The combined effects of food inflation, fuel inflation, and the increase in price of goods such as fertiliser have caused a “perfect storm” for the poorest in the UK, meaning charities are having to work even harder in order to support those experiencing food insecurity. Food poverty charity FareShare and The Felix Project say food inflation has already had an impact on families, many of whom were stretching their budgets as far as they could before the conflict began in February. “The Food and Drink Federation, which represents the food industry, shares forecasts for food inflation. [Recently] they revised it…

Denmark Street has been a hub of creativity since the 1930s. This was London’s answer to Tin Pan Alley, a songwriting hotspot of recording studios and music publishers, where in the 1960s and ’70s, icons like The Rolling Stones and David Bowie hung out. More recently, it was the best place for guitar shopping in the country. And the home of legendary gig venues such as the 12 Bar Club – a tiny venue with a corner stage and balcony that hosted the likes of Jeff Buckley, The Libertines and many of Adele’s early gigs. But 10 years ago, Denmark Street was earmarked for demolition. Crossrail was one of the biggest disruptions to the centre of London in decades – and many cultural venues were lost. Walking from Charing Cross,…

BIG Question What is the high street? Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy food, clothes or a birthday present for somebody, you couldn’t just order it on your phone and have it delivered. Nor did you drive to an out-of-town retail park. In fact, shops were largely found in town centres, meaning they were accessible on foot or by public transport. → Why are they called high streets? Wherever you live, the name for the main thoroughfare tends to be the same. There are around 5,300 streets called High Street in Britain. They’re not named that because of a lofty geographical position but because in the past ‘high’ meant superior and these main routes (highways) would be better maintained. → Why are they not very well maintained…

RESPONSES TO: Half a million empty homes are ‘hiding in plain sight’ [on bigissue.com] ↓ The solution has to be making these homes available to those in need. Owners should be encouraged to house people. Incentives should be given. Zulf Ali, Facebook ↓ I think they should be compulsorily purchased. Maggie Caudwell, Facebook ↓ I was in our town centre the other day and realised how much property above the shops is unused and empty. If this was all brought back into use it would not only be able to rehouse desperate people, but also bring people into our deserted town centres! Julia Holloway, Facebook ↓ That’s what squatting was always about. Direct people power is always the fastest solution. If the owner has abandoned a property, after six months…

The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were one of those eccentric British Sixties groups whose oeuvre drifted across pop, jazz and music hall. Their song The Equestrian Statue proclaims the power of the statue to bring joy to a dreary day, causing ladies to stop and exclaim “Well, I declare!” Few statues have this effect. The busy passer-by is unlikely to stop before a statue, or to make any exclamation. The statue has become an unnoticed part of the urban fabric. As the Austrian writer Robert Musil put it, back in 1936, “There is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument.” If most statues are destined to live out their lives as mundane and ignored features of our cityscapes, sometimes a statue does grab attention. This often happens when…

ALAN’S TRIVIA CORNER Which pop icon was born in Houston, Texas, on 4 September 1981? (Answer below) Crossword Cryptic clues Across Type of policy likely to appeal to children (5,4) Join one in new tune (5) A friend who is in form (9) It will identify a bell that has been broken (5) Sideways? (7) Overweight boy was doomed (5) Bondsman who selects at random (5) Sat back at about quarter to ten in state (5) A politician taken in by attractive girl finds it rather humid (7) Argument leads to arrest (3,2) One at the centre of business perhaps (9) A river flowed in the island (5) Before delivery heard to oppose old province (9) Down Fit to do the job with reservations (9) They are settled collectively in…