Innholdsfortegnelse for 27-12-19 i The Big Issue

Summing up the end of a decade is a curious thing to do. While neat timings are useful and allow for lists – and who doesn’t like a good list?! – they’re frequently of little consequence. Events don’t simply begin and end at the dawn and death of a decade. That arbitrary top and tail, usually accompanied by a look forward helps, mostly, journalists get loads of content ready at a curious time of the year. So here goes a summation of the decade and a look at the months ahead. The last 10 years have been the era of social media. It existed before but the explosion of it changed the world. The Arab Spring, though ultimately unsuccessful, spread across Tunisia, Egypt, Iran and the Middle East, thanks to…

Many millennia from now, when future geologists chip away at the rocks and look back at the fossils that were formed in the 21st century, they’ll notice something very strange indeed. One species will dominate this inanimate catalogue of life. Can you guess which one? No, it’s not us, Homo sapiens. Although there will be human fossils, there’s another, far more ubiquitous animal whose remains will be commonplace. Let me give you a couple of clues. They are feathered, beaked and clawed, with a bulbous rear end and a stubby parson’s nose. They are the most abundant bird on the planet. With a staggering 22 billion alive today, they outnumber us humans, three to one. They taste like chicken… because they are chickens. Sixty years ago, chickens weren’t anything like…

“My brain’s not working properly, or feels that way, so I make things, distract it, keep it occupied,” explains Assad, who submits his artworks via London homelessness charity the 240 Project. “I work with whatever’s at hand: found objects, clay, plaster, wood, forcing them together, making them into a single cohesive entity. I’m not trained, just determined. “I am inspired equally by Somalia, where I was born, and London, where I live now. The figures I make can be quite ugly, brutal. It’s not intentional, but does reflect my past. Maybe they’ll get prettier over time.” 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. At least half of the profit goes to…

Leading up to the general election, The Big Issue campaigned for candidates to back our Future Generations Pledge. Spearheaded by our founder Lord John Bird, the ambition is to end short-term policy that is incapable of dismantling poverty, leading governments to repeat mistakes from the past. Of the hundreds of candidates who backed the pledge, 66 were elected – including 17 brand new MPs. The election had meant that the bid to bring the Future Generations Bill through Parliament had to be halted but the private member’s bill will now return to the House of Lords, aiming to install a UK Future Generations Commissioner to scrutinise decisions made in the present to assess the impact they will have on future generations. But we didn’t want this vital issue to fall…

I wholly endorse The Big Issue Future Generations Pledge. It is critical, timely and unavoidable. The climate emergency is real and oppressive, and the grip of its tentacles is already causing us to gasp for breath. The afflictions of today will be as nothing compared to the tragedies for the forthcoming generations. No one can predict or fully sense just what suffering lies in wait. Yet the nature of the emergency is that, if we do nothing about it, their suffering will worsen beyond any imagination of pain. So, creating a legal safeguard for guaranteeing the wellbeing of all future generations on Earth is essential. Yet the signs are that we are not ready to do this. We are carbon addicts and are controlled in thought and action by weak,…

‘THIS GOVERNMENT WANTS TO PUNISH THE POOR’ – JEFF TAYLOR I've had the opportunity to flip Trump off. I sing church songs on street corners in downtown DC to make money. His motorcade has several times passed the intersection of 13th and Pennsylvania Avenue. It sounds discordant to say the least that I flip anybody off while singing hymns but I feel strongly about this man. I was just reading about the changes to the food stamp programme. They're going to ask what they deem able-bodied adults aged 18 to 49 who are not raising children to work a minimum of 20 hours a week. It's going to hit a lot of people in rural America, where jobs are not plentiful and public transportation is not available either, that's also…

In Servant, the new TV series from notoriously twisty director M Night Shyamalan, a couple are devastated by the loss of their baby son, Jericho. To help them cope, the mother, Dorothy, adopts a lifelike doll, and even hires a nanny to look after it. But as is inevitably the case with Shyamalan, the man behind The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable , all is not what it seems. He talks about how Servant taps into our greatest fears and what fills the gap when religious faith is gone. Our biggest nightmares Our worst fear is something happening to our children. That’s a very primal fear inside of us. Everyone can relate even if they don’t have kids, that sense that you’re supposed to be the protector. When you have children,…

The pitch was simple. Let’s draw up a plan to tackle endemic racist abuse in football and spread the message far and wide in 2020. Serie A officials in Italy organised a poster campaign, commissioned an artist and waited for the results… which turned out to be that supporters are apes and we should acknowledge we are all in this terrible monkey business together. Sports administrators have never been renowned for their prescience or foresight, but even by that standard, there seems to be a worrying lack of 2020 vision. In the year ahead, we can look forward to an Olympics in Japan, which will not feature anyone competing under the flag of Russia, whose tendency towards creating hormone monsters has finally been recognised and reviled by the International Olympic…

Kirsty Avril Jane Murray Not a crisis? I’d say more foodbanks than McDonald’s, thousands of deaths due to austerity and hate crime reaching record numbers is a crisis. David Rogers All the churches and chapels virtually empty all year round. Homeless on the streets. There’s an idea there somewhere! Pat McGinley A government for the many not the few ie real democracy, is absurdly unrealistic in this totally corrupt system based on greed, privilege, gross inequality, gross injustices against the poor, sick, vulnerable, etc. @BradLadewig Hi @JustinWelby – your article in The @BigIssue was mentioned on the national radio here in Germany this morning – I think many share your concerns about the UK’s direction of travel. letters@bigissue.com @KayBurley “I would like him to look upon the streets as an…

Specialisms rule; I with my specialism of homelessness and poverty. I am regularly dusted down for the media to be asked for penetrating insights into my specialisms. I am always meeting other specialists. Recently I had my hands cut about by a specialist – thank god he was one – for my Dupuytren condition: a contraction of the hands due to a kind of shortening of the hand muscles. I went to him because he was an expert, or a specialist. Specialism is of vital importance in running the world. But unfortunately specialisation can be the worst of all possible responses to crises and their problems. Of course if you’ve got what’s called ‘The Viking disease’, Dupuytren’s, you don’t want a vet working on you, or a gynaecologist. But problems…

Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour) Erith and Thamesmead* Adam Price (Plaid Cymru) Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Party leader and National Assembly member) Afzal Khan (Labour) Manchester Gorton Alex Davies-Jones (Welsh Labour) Pontypridd* Alex Sobel (Labour & Co-operative) Leeds North West Amy Callaghan (SNP) East Dunbartonshire* Andrew Gwynne (Labour) Denton and Reddish Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour) Streatham* Bob Blackman (Conservative) Harrow East Boris Johnson (Conservative) Uxbridge and South Ruislip Caroline Lucas (Green) Brighton Pavilion Charlotte Nichols (Labour) Warrington North* Christopher Elmore (Labour) Ogmore Claudia Webbe (Labour) Leicester East* Damian Collins (Conservative) Folkestone and Hythe Daniel Zeichner (Labour) Cambridge Dehenna Davison (Conservative) Bishop Auckland Ed Davey (Lib Dem) Kingston and Surbiton Ellie Reeves (Labour) Lewisham West and Penge Fleur Anderson (Labour) Putney* Florence Eshalomi (Labour & Co-operative) Vauxhall* Gill Furniss (Labour) Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough…

Despondency hit the left-leaning citizens of the UK like a sledgehammer at about 10pm on December 12, when the exit polls of the general election were published, suggesting (as it turns out, correctly) that Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, running almost solely on a pledge to ‘Get Brexit Done’, had trounced Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, running on a manifesto of radical economic change intended to address the huge and growing inequality in the country. However, there can be few voters who were as incredulous as those of us from former industrial towns and villages in the north of England, as we saw constituency after constituency turn away from Labour, their long-time party of choice, to the very party that decimated their communities in the 1980s: the Conservatives. I was born and raised…

It’s April, it’s sunny, and I’m humming… ‘We've heard it all before / We're learning to ignore / You must confess this awful mess / Isn't just a bore’ I’m unnaturally jovial… ‘It's more than we could bear / But you don't really care / Kiss of life to save our life / All you do is stare’ It’s one of my favourite songs from way back in 1978… ‘I'm back in full attack / Never give in until they crack / Emergency’ It’s Emergency by 999, perhaps the most underrated punk band, and I joyously recall vocalist Nick Cash reeling around the stage spitting out this song. So, so good! I’ve always liked the ‘never give in until they crack’ sentiment, and it’s particularly relevant today – because today…

odie Whittaker is an enthusiast. She talks quickly, hands wave everywhere, infectious laughter punctures the rapid-fire conversation as she flits from subject to subject, barely pausing to finish a thought. But with the great power that comes with taking perhaps the biggest job in British television drama comes great responsibility. She has to keep her personal politics in check. It’s not always easy. We meet in a hotel in Soho in London’s West End. She shows me over to “the posh seats” by the window. And while it is , in her words, “proper cold” outside, Whittaker always reserves a warm welcome for The Big Issue. “It’s a brilliant magazine that I buy every week,” she says. I begin to ask about the 37-year-old’s vision for 2020. What view might…

It’s easy to think of Sheku Kanneh-Mason as the teenage cellist who knocked the wind out of billions of people watching his performance at Meghan and Harry’s wedding. But by that point in 2018, he’d already chalked up a remarkable list of achievements. He was six when he first lifted a cello. At 16 he was named 2016’s BBC Young Musician of the Year – the first black musician to take the title in the competition’s history. Now he’s kicking off 2020 with an album recorded alongside his hero Sir Simon Rattle. With his background as a state-educated kid from Nottingham Kanneh-Mason, who is still only 20, knows that even a talent like his could have gone undiscovered. He’s dismayed that other kids who lack funds or an early exposure…

A hand up, not a handout... Our sellers BUY the magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50. Trade, not aid… Which is why we ask you to ALWAYS take your copy of the magazine. Our sellers are working and need your custom. Poverty is indiscriminate… That is why we provide ANYONE whose life is blighted by poverty with the opportunity to earn a LEGITIMATE income. The right to citizenship… The Big Issue Foundation, our charitable arm, helps sellers tackle social and financial exclusion. Prevention… Big Issue Invest offers backing and investments to social enterprises, charities and businesses which deliver social value to communities.…