Table of contents for 8/12/2024 in The Big Issue

HERE'S THE TRUTH ABOUT MIGRATION Beyond inflammatory headlines and dehumanising rhetoric, statistics show the reality of migration into the UK, how the UK compares with other European countries, and how vital immigrants are to the public services that keep the country running The role immigrants played in our essential services Number of visas granted * Care workers 57,693 roughly twice as many as arrived on small boats Nurses 25,947 Doctors 9,159 *YEAR ENDING MARCH 2023 (OUT-OF-COUNTRY APPLICATIONS ONLY) ↑up from 220,000 a year earlier 265,000 of 1.5 million NHS staff reported a non-British nationality in June 2023 Teachers 1,100 work visas issued to qualified secondary school teachers in 2023double the 555 visas issued in 2022 (was 205 in 2021) 486 teachers from Jamaica were offered visas in 2023 to…

Host a refugee or asylum seeker at your home Once an asylum seeker is granted refugee status, they are given limited time to find a home. Short-notice evictions mean many end up on the streets. A number of organisations connect refugees with hosts, including Refugees at Home and Hope at Home. “We welcome people with a spare room, in towns or cities all over the UK,” said Sara Nathan of Refugees at Home. “It can make all the difference at a difficult point in people’s lives.” ► refugeesathome.org► hopeathome.org.uk Attend anti-racism marches if safe to do so Find anti-racism protests by checking out events held by Stand Up to Racism. Only attend if it is safe for you to go. ► standuptoracism.org.uk Support organisations who support asylum seekers Many organisations…

I left school at 15. I got kicked out. I wasn’t a bad kid. I was just... I think now they’d call it ADHD. I found school boring, it didn’t excite me and I didn’t see anyone from my area that was successful because they went to school. I need to see something to believe that it can happen. That’s probably why I made so many fucking mistakes along the way. At 16 I was totally lost, if I’m honest. I was going to building college but I only did that to copy my cool cousin, the one who always got girls, had a great haircut and a diamond earring in one ear – just a good-looking bastard basically. I knew I had to do something. My mum always said…

I love the way Paris has hosted the Olympics. OK, so the opening ceremony was flatter than a dry crèpe with no Nutella on it, but so what? Only that city could give you a terrible fashion show involving a Smurf and a woman with an aerial on her head – interspersed with people from Nauru waving on a boat – and make you feel grateful for it. The fact that Paris refuses to make allowances for anyone is part of its charm, of course, but it’s always terrified me. Whenever I go there I am gripped by the stinging humiliation of Not Being French, and worse, being a lardy British rosbif who can’t find the Metro. If there were an Olympic medal for Not Understanding The Rules of A…

A friend of mine was recently told that he was ‘beautiful’ by another man. My friend is a man. My friend realised in that moment that he couldn’t remember the last time that he was called beautiful. He posted a story on Instagram talking about how good it felt being called beautiful. Just in general too. Not even specifically that it was by another man. Who was straight, I might add, reluctantly. Unfortunately, it feels important to make that clear because, my god, a lot of men these days are on the ropes. Persistently crippled by a fear of being seen as gay. In the same breath as exclaiming masculinity is all about strength and resilience. Which it can be, among other things. So why the fear? Why so fragile?…

Ever since Bill Oddie became the first celebrity to have his roots dug up on Who Do You Think You Are? in 2004, the stories the show has told have made it one of the most compelling series on television. Each episode may focus on the families of famous people, but what the genealogists and historians uncover are depictions of everyday heroism, stoicism and struggle. Over the years, the series has slowly and subtly constructed a new picture of this nation. Global stories of migration and war intermingle with accounts of ancestors surviving poverty to create something better. These powerful accounts build a portrait of a country that’s been shaped by immigration over many centuries. Executive producer Colette Flight, who has worked on the series since 2006, says: “All these…

“Nature is always a work in progress, as we all are,” says long-time regular Street Art contributor Forman, in relation to her latest series of flower- and plant-themed artworks. Forman is in her late fifties, lives in Brighton and copes with physical and mental health challenges including rheumatoid arthritis and bipolar disorder. “The art process is therapeutic,” she says. “It helps us to grow to become better versions of ourselves.” ← BUY ME You can buy a print of this and other artworks featured in our Street Art series from Big Issue Shop. Scan the QR code or visit: bigissueshop.com/collections/art-photography to support marginalised artists. The work on this page is created by people who are marginalised. Contact street.lights@bigissue.com to see your art here. To see more and buy prints: bigissueshop.com.…

REVIEW A Chinese crime thriller that’s awash with mystery The omnipresence of the police procedural in western novels, TV and film has turned the genre into comfort food. That can seem strange if you pause to consider how many of these stories take bloody murder as their starting point. But perhaps they are soothing because our protagonists tend to power-hose away all the moral murk surrounding a crime and ultimately set the world back on its axis. Thank you for your service, Death in Paradise. Seeking out cop stories set beyond the US and UK feels like a simple way to expand your palette with some new flavours. (Most commonly: what brand of cigarettes is everyone going to smoke in this one?) Give me a textured 1980s film like Gorky…

VULFPECK ‘Pinch-me’ moments of Montreux magic Vulfpeck, the Michigan-based funk group famed for their virtuosity and slick, polished production, originally formed with a shared desire to emulate super-tight West Coast session bands of the 1960s and 70s, such as The Funk Brothers and The Wrecking Crew. Their 2014 Sleepify project, in which they asked fans to stream a silent Spotify track while they slept, generated enough streaming revenue to fund a free national tour and established a cult following which has endured through subsequent album releases and tours, spin-off groups and affiliated projects. Vulfpeck fans are zealously committed. Online forums dissect recordings and live shows with academic scrutiny and coordinate itineraries to shadow the group on world tours. This year they performed at Montreux Jazz Festival for the first time…

Last week’s Big Issue followed three vendors on a country retreat. Our man in Bristol explains how it changed him MARK RAMSEY, 50 I’m back on my pitch after going on a retreat to the Lake District. I can’t get it out of my head. I haven’t shut up about it since I got back, I’ve told all my friends about the Lake District. One of the organisers, Paul, put up with me and I can’t thank him enough for that. I didn’t have a drink for two days and at one point I wanted to get back. But you couldn’t and that was all bearing up on me. I do like my outdoors activities. The Lake District took me back to ages ago, going back to school. We went…

With a new government pledging its new strategy to end homelessness, those of us working in the sector are cautiously optimistic about the future, but we’re nervous in the lead-up to autumn as multiple and converging factors could make the situation worse for people at risk of homelessness. The cost of living crisis, the reduction in local authority funding, and the growing problem of homelessness among newly recognised refugees has had a devastating impact on the sector. As a housing adviser for youth homelessness charity Depaul UK, my team and I are on the frontline. People are contacting us in tears most days and many are struggling with mental health issues, exacerbated by their situation. It’s always busy – especially in the afternoons, as people start to worry that they…

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue Access denied Foot surgery last year saw me dependent on a wheelchair for a few weeks and gave me a new perspective on the difficulties faced by permanent users such as Anna Landre [Issue 1627, 05-11 August]. Finding some places difficult and others impossible to access was bad enough, but my worst moment came at a library event, which I had reached via a lift to the top floor. The organiser cheerfully announced that, while no fire alarm was scheduled to go off, on no account should anyone try to use the lift if it did. Would I have been carried bodily down the stairs in the event of a fire?…

A new series of short films exploring why people become homeless has been made by Cardboard Citizens, a charity that uses drama and performance to transform the lives of those who have lived experienced of homelessness, in collaboration with Black Apron Entertainment. Each film is written and performed by people who have experienced homelessness, poverty or inequity and can be watched at bigissue.com This week’s film puts the spotlight on the LGBTQ+ community, who experience high levels of homelessness. And For Once, I Just Let It Be Nice is written by Charlie Josephine, one of the country’s most exciting dramatists. In 2022, their play I, Joan opened to great acclaim at Shakespeare’s Globe and Cowbois – co-directed by Josephine with Sean Holmes – opened last year at the RSC’s Swan…

REVIEWS Character building Alan Hollinghurst is known to write his novels extremely slowly. It takes time for him to wield the acutely British magnifying glass that is cast over his characters – that trenchantly mordant view of his often-insular protagonists. It is easy to say that his subjects do not change all too much; he once admitted to having tried writing a novel with no gay characters in it, and failed. He writes with a limpid touch and subtle irony that perfectly fits the later 20th-century scenes of British life he dissects. There is often a peculiarly reticent sense to his narrators, even in a novel as long as his latest, Our Evenings. Hollinghurst’s familiar voice and subjects allow us to see what he is doing in each novel within…

INTERVIEW Dylan Mulvaney For Dylan Mulvaney, it was a no-brainer to premiere her new one-woman show FAGHAG at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. “I might be seen as very polarising in the United States, but coming here, I feel a little bit lighter,” says the LA-based musical theatre star with 9.5 million TikTok followers. “And I want to make sure this piece is as strong as it can be before I take it out to audiences who maybe aren’t as open minded.” Mulvaney, 27, never wanted to be polarising. “Oh my god, I was the most people-pleasing person you would ever have met,” she says. “And now I have a lot of people who, you know, potentially think of me poorly. But what I have to keep reminding myself is…