1/25/2021

The Big Issue

The Big Issue - A Hand Up, Not a Hand Out

The Big Issue3 min readPolitics
Benefits Chaos Leaves Families At Risk
“It’s easy to forget how much every pound counts to someone who doesn’t have any other access to money.” Yorkshire resident Morgan, 22, is one of six million people set to lose £20 a week – £1,040 per year – if the temporary increase to Universal Cr
The Big Issue1 min readPolitics
What is Universal Credit?
Universal Credit was introduced by the coalition government in 2013, designed to streamline the benefits system. Instead of a patchwork of means-tested benefits like housing benefit and income-based Job Seeker’s Allowance, it wrapped them up into one
The Big Issue3 min read
Get In Touch
Just a little thank you for the fab article What Would David Bowie Do? [December 28] – I found it so uplifting! Having spent the first half of this pandemic closing myself off from everyone and everything after losing my home, withdrawing because I f
The Big Issue1 min read
Support Your Local Vendor
Across the country vendors are prevented from working on their pitches by the national lockdown. Our staff is working closely with each vendor to make sure there is extra support to make up for lost earnings. We also understand that apart from reduce
The Big Issue2 min read
Vendor Pam Pays Warm Tribute To Husband Paul
Big Issue vendor Pamela Clark has paid a touching tribute to her husband, fellow seller Paul Clarkson, following his death over Christmas. Much-loved vendor Paul, who sold the magazine for two years outside Sainsbury’s Local on Portland Road in Hove
The Big Issue1 min read
Join The Conversation At Bigissue.com
More people than ever before are keeping up with the latest news at bigissue.com. Are you? Here are the latest highlights: • It’s a Sin creator Russell T Davies on the people most likely to be forgotten in a pandemic • Child poverty in the UK – find
The Big Issue2 min read
Biden Our Time For A Brighter Future
It would have been useful to get some warnings about the weeping. When those of us (men, I mean) reach a certain age, I now understand there is a latent trigger that is pressed. And after it’s gone, tears come easily; frequently they flood, ridiculo
The Big Issue4 min read
Creating Opportunities For Even More People
Whether you’re in work, currently unemployed, or worried about your job security, Big Issue Jobs & Training is here to help. We have teamed up with leading jobs board Adzuna and online training organisation FutureLearn to create the RORA Toolkit, an
The Big Issue2 min read
Martin M Ckenzie How To Get Up To Speed With Ebikes
Most of the care for ebikes is the same as for push bikes except you have some additional maintenance to bear in mind. Such as if your tyres are soft you could bend your spokes and drain, or even ruin, your battery. You could also burn your motor out
The Big Issue1 min readCrime & Violence
This House Doesn’t Exist
Pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s secret estate have been leaked for the first time. The largest private residence in Russia – at 190,425 sq ft – it’s supposedly fitted with all the mod cons: casino, cinema, amphitheatre, bakery, ice ri
The Big Issue3 min read
Did Kiwis And Ice Cream Test Positive For Covid-19?
The start of the new year is traditionally the time to lay off the food a bit. Whether you’ve gone vegan for Veganuary or just cut back on the sweet stuff, it’s a time to put the gluttony and indulgence of Christmas behind you. If that hasn’t done t
The Big Issue4 min read
After 30 Years, The Big Issue’s Job Has Only Just Begun
It is about this time 30 years ago that I was receiving annoying messages from Gordon Roddick of The Body Shop to meet and talk about a possible street paper. Gordon the year before had bought a copy of a street paper call Street News in New York and
The Big Issue4 min read
The Problem With ‘Diversity’
When I was nine years old a television crew came to my school. They wanted to take a small group of children from my class to the Science Museum and film them for a schools programme. It was incredibly exciting and every child wanted to be picked. T
The Big Issue1 min read
This Week John Will Be
WATCHING: Sense and Sensibility, the Ang Lee film with Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson READING: The Spark that Lit the Revolution: Lenin in London and the Politics that Changed the World by Robert Henderson LISTENING TO: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Third Sy
The Big Issue6 min read
Zoe Lyons
My accent was always one country behind where I was living. I was born in Wales, moved to Ireland, to England and then to Scotland so it was always trying to catch up. As a kid, you always feel like an outsider and I guess I was lonely at school. May
The Big Issue6 min readPolitics
Future Generations.
This week marks The Big Issue’s ‘Wellbeing Week’: January 25-28. It follows a time in January when the nation’s wellbeing is at its annual low. We have marked ‘Wellbeing Week’ with a series of virtual events for MPs to listen to young people aged 15
The Big Issue4 min read
For The Big Challenges We Need More Than Money. We Need Smart Governance
Governments across the globe are adapting to the Covid challenge in different ways and with different degrees of success. Governance is key to successful adaptation. Countries’ responses have differed in both the quantity and the quality of actions t
The Big Issue1 min read
Well That Was A Surprise
In 2013, Joan Bakewell guest-edited a special edition of The Big Issue, celebrating remarkable older women and how they shape society. The cover of the magazine is proudly framed on her wall. She says: “I had such a good time. I love doing the layo
The Big Issue7 min read
‘There's Just A Great Sparkle There’
Before or after a storm, some calm is required. When The Big Issue dials into a Zoom call with Joan Bakewell and Stephen Mangan, they immediately start chatting like excited schoolchildren about the breaking news coming in about the Georgia Senate se
The Big Issue1 min read
Street Art
English graduate Nicole submits her work via the 240 Project, a London arts and health activity centre for people affected by homelessness and exclusion. Her artwork finds her immersed in what she calls “the therapeutic dottiness of pointillism… I’m
The Big Issue3 min read
Bad Seed
This week we have two wonderful pieces of speculative fiction that draw on elements of African futurism to create near-futures that are shifted from the real world in a number of ways, both minor and profound. First up is Remote Control by Nnedi Oko
The Big Issue4 min read
FILM & BROADCAST
The shortest debate in history may have taken place when Leeds lad Matthew Lewis and his Orlando-based wife Angela Jones were picking where to spend lockdown. Sunny Florida… or Leeds? “We didn’t really have much choice to be honest because I’m going
The Big Issue1 min read
Top 5 Books By George Orwell That Aren’t 1984 Or Animal Farm
Orwell’s funniest novel is a spiky, semi-autobiographical satire of the London literary scene and thwarted ambition. Gordon Comstock, an unsuccessful poet terrified of sliding into bourgeois conformity, is a hilarious misanthrope and forerunner of th
The Big Issue3 min read
Mind Fullness
During those morose moments of lockdown and the uncertain in-between times, there have been certain people who have thrown lifebelts with simple but brilliant bursts of creativity and absurdity. Alistair Green has produced hundreds of immaculately ob
The Big Issue3 min read
Full Circle
It’s amazing how oǼten the initial spark for doing or making something is some small, seemingly insignificant, issue that has always annoyed you. In the case of A Circle of Five it is that snapshot portrayal of the ‘Windrush Generation’ in popular me
The Big Issue3 min read
Pay The Piper
In an alternate universe, Róisín Walters would be in the middle of a busy patch of work, spending the early weeks of January fine-tuning the logistics of her hectic schedule for the year ahead. In January 2019, her career took her from Liverpool and
The Big Issue2 min read
Alan's Quiz Corner
1. Now that Wham!’s Last Christmas has finally topped the UK singles chart, what is now the best-selling song not to make the top slot based on physical sales only? 2. Before the Brexit vote in 2016, what year did the previous UK referendum on wheth
The Big Issue2 min readAmerican Government
On The Streets Of Washington DC
These last few days, Trump supporters have detoured my life. They remind me of Jim Jones’s cult juice. Some of these people were so far gone that he could have probably gotten each and every one to drink the suicide juice that day. It takes so much d
The Big Issue1 min read
The Big Issue
John Bird and Gordon Roddick Nigel Kershaw Paul Cheal Russell Blackman Editor Paul McNamee Deputy editor Steven MacKenzie Content projects editor Vicky Carroll Digital editor Alastair Reid Digital producer Laura Kelly Senior reporter Liam Gerag
The Big Issue1 min read
The Big Issue Manifesto
Our sellers BUY the magazine for £1.50 and sell it on for £3, keeping the difference. Vendors earn a legitimate income, and gain valuable social and employability skills. With your support now, we can continue to help them now and in the future. The

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