Innholdsfortegnelse for 5/23/2022 i The Big Issue

Ministers have rejected a recommendation from backbench MPs to make water companies measure the amount of sewage they discharge into rivers in England. The snub was included in the government’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) report on water quality in rivers, which underscored the dangerously high levels of sewage, agricultural, plastic and chemical pollutants in England’s waterways. EAC chair Philip Dunne MP called the government’s acceptance of the majority of the committee’s recommendations “broadly positive”, though the committee said it was “concerned” and “disappointed” that other key recommendations had been rejected. The report, sent to MPs in January, warned of a “chemical cocktail” of pollutants in England’s rivers which risks breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria as well as compromising human and animal health. The government accepted 23 of 55 recommendations,…

THE ROAD TO ACHIEVING MY DEGREE HAS PARALLELS WITH MY JOURNEY AS A REFUGEE On April 1 2022, I finally attended the University of Essex’s graduation ceremony. On November 25 2020, I had been conferred a Master of Arts (with Distinction) in Refugee Care, but the pandemic postponed the celebration that would have occurred long ago under normal circumstances. I want to share parts of my journey to the celebration. It’s an incredible experience to wear the graduation gown and celebrate with my colleagues. It was an unforgettable moment to hear my name read aloud and to be recognised by the university and others. As an ex-refugee and a minority, I have frequently been denied my proper acknowledgement, and the establishment has consistently refused to recognise me and accord me…

Honestly this does have a lot of scope to be great. It’s anachronistic, so it’s fine that it’s a long time since the original series was made. A lot of the charm was the exploration of characters and the weekly plots, and the greater story arc mostly just added tone and a touch of mystery. Series Two left off on a great springboard for more, so it wouldn’t even necessarily be one of those bullshit plots tacked on after the fact to manufacture investment from loose ends that didn’t exist. It could just be more Tyler and Hunt tooling around in Manchester. I’d be in. Richeh I’ll reserve judgement on this. I love the characters so much but I was satisfied with how it ended. Ashes to Ashes was very…

The age of 16 was a challenging time because that was when I really understood my dad’s addiction [Gary Wicks was a heroin user]. I understood that relapse is a constant disappointment and I felt like I was just being let down by him, so I was quite angry and resentful. I didn’t want to be around him. He’d be clean for a year then relapse, so then he’d be gone again in rehab, and it just got harder and harder. I had a girlfriend at the time as well, and trying to explain to her why he wasn’t around was difficult. I was still a happy kid on the surface. I loved being in school, I loved sport and fitness. But I was very disruptive and distracted in every…

Selected by Pope Lonergan Stand-up comedian and writer 1 The Wrestling by Simon Garfield I’m a wrestling zealot. When I was a kid I was lucky enough to go to a WWE (née WWF) show in London. Next to the entranceway there was a 77-year-old wrestler called Mae Young and my lifelong BF Louie and I patted her arm as she passed through. Afterwards we noticed some skin cells on our hands and, as a spontaneous gesture of devotion, we licked them off. Like we loved wrestling so much we wanted to consume a tiny bit of a wrestler. Proper nutbag kids. 2 Harvest Moon: Portrait of a Nursing Home by Sallie Tisdale One of the few day-to-day accounts of care home living. It’s like I’ll Die After…

Lea Thompson is familiar with the future. In the trilogy of Back to the Future films she played Marty McFly’s mother Lorraine at three ages: a 17-year-old high schooler in 1955 who almost dates her time-travelling son, two alternative versions of her 1985 – the film’s present day – 47-year-old self, and a 77-year-old who lived in what back then was far in the future, but now seems quite long ago: 2015. The future in Back to the Future had flying cars, hoverboards, self-tying shoelaces and another 15 Jaws sequels. We have the internet and a load of Biffs running the show. “The internet came on too fast and too strong and is too addictive,” Thompson says, over an internet connection from her home in Los Angeles. “The echo chambers…

It is easy to believe the narrative that immigration is the number one burning issue in the country today. The UK government’s hardline Rwanda plan and provocative headlines in parts of the press would have us all believe a majority are against immigration. The 2016 EU referendum saw a peak of 48 per cent of people in Britain tell pollsters Ipsos Mori’s Issues Index that immigration is one of the most important issues facing the UK. But this chart paints a different picture now. The Financial Times graph shows that now just 10 per cent believe that. Annual immigration to the UK has continued to rise to around 700,000 people per year.…

The amount of money lost to fraud and error through Covid business support schemes is estimated to be a minimum of £8.6bn Well, that’s the conservative estimate. It could be as much as the central estimate of £11.8bn or as high as £16.3bn. Either way, it’s not pocket change. Labour has put together a few easy reference points to show how much that actually is to real people. Each of the UK’s 28.1 million households would lose the equivalent of £420, going by the central estimate for Covid losses of £11.8bn. But it could be as much as £580 if we’re going by the upper estimate of £16.3bn. That is equivalent to one month’s worth of food for a family, or six tanks of fuel. £11.8bn is twice as much…

Tory MP Lee Anderson sparked a fresh debate on the impact of the cost of living crisis after telling MPs poor budgeting and cooking skills are behind the need for foodbanks in the UK. “There’s not this massive use for foodbanks in this country,” said Anderson, an MP most famous for boycotting the England national team during the Euro 2020 finals because players chose to kneel before kick-off in support of racial equality. “You’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget.” Mental health social worker Tom Pollard has another theory. He shared this chart on social media after spending months investigating foodbank use. “I’d say the declining real-terms value of benefits looks like a more plausible explanation for the…

In poor health  The NHS is becoming a conveyor belt service. Automation doesn’t work with the endless telephone calls, long waiting lists, robotic replies that don’t react with the requirements of the patients. There is an overstretched ambulance service and the A&E services are the most overworked medical departments. Beds should always be available, and not a lottery. Patients are not cattle, being shuffled here and there. The NHS is overstretched and Brexit was fuelled by the fact that billions were going to be injected into it – yet to be substantiated. The NHS must look back to its original intentions, rather than expanding like a balloon that is going to burst. TG Springthorpe, Southend-on-Sea It’s crippling always being short of money, exasperating and embarrassing@j_ jackieboo22 Queen of King Street…

It’s been a year in which social housing tenants have stood up to demand better homes and now it is starting to pay off. The golden age of council housing is over, instead replaced by a scenario where ageing social housing stock is sold off to the private sector or housing associations, many of them for-profit. For tenants, that has meant higher costs and poor living conditions. And many of them have had enough. The tireless campaigning from activist Kwajo Tweneboa and investigative journalism from ITV News have added to the voices of Grenfell campaigners, showing horror story after horror story to the point where ministers had no choice but to listen. The result is the Social Housing Regulation Bill that was revealed earlier this month in the Queen’s Speech…

Long-time regular Street Art contributor Mary’s colourful, aquatic paintings are her way of helping to deal with a history of depression and homelessness. “It’s great that The Big Issue gives me opportunity to showcase my work,” she says, “as it helps me develop and makes my self-esteem improve and my depression ease. With every artwork I produce the pain gets easier.”…

I saw Prince William up the park the other day. He was taller and more athletic in person than he appears on the telly. He’s 40 next month, and I know all too well how difficult it is to stay in shape once you reach that stage of your life – especially if you’re constantly dining at state banquets and what not. I figure he must have a gym in his house, or at least access to a Peloton. Anyway, here’s how it happened. I was at the gym doing my regular Saturday workout with my 10-year-old son Lenny and our personal trainer Jordan. This is not a fancy gym, by the way. It’s just a small concrete structure owned by the council, with a few exercise machines and a…

I know too many people in the situation I was in. I know the feeling of not having a job or money to pay the bills ILLIE PREDA, 42 I’ve lived in Newcastle since 2007, but I like to sell the magazine in Alnwick because there are nice people here and it’s a nice place. I have never had any discrimination here because my colour is not white. I have lots of regular customers and I consider them like best friends or my family. I sell the magazine two or three days a week and I work with The Big Issue office in Newcastle to deliver magazines to homeless people and the Romanian community. I’m very happy to be a franchisee for The Big Issue. I sell the magazines and…

1. The remarkable rise of Ncuti Gatwa from sofa surfing and homelessness to Doctor Who 2. Outlander and A Discovery of Witches star Steven Cree: “These shows have the power to unite people” 3. Martin Lewis: “I can’t shut up because there really are lives at stake” 4. Tory MP claims there’s no need for foodbanks and that people can feed themselves for 30p a day 5. Expanded stop-and-search powers will lead to more criminalisation of Black people, groups warn…

How can you be sure your money isn’t being used to fund the latest oil field, or fossil fuel extraction project? Investors are facing a deluge of green marketing, and a lot of it amounts to greenwashing. This is why The Big Exchange, an ethical investment company co-founded by The Big Issue, awards funds with medals in an attempt to tell investors whether the fund walks the talk. The Big Exchange’s Head of Product, Cam Bourne, says there’s little to stop an investment company simply putting “ESG” or “sustainable” on the end of its fund’s name. But that doesn’t mean it’s actually doing good with your money. So, The Big Exchange tests funds against its own impact methodology which focuses on three main things: Firstly, the positive influence the fund…

When Stranger Things launched in 2016, Netflix was riding high. The success that began with House of Cards in 2013 continued in shows like The Crown, Lupin and Bridgerton. In 2021 South Korean drama Squid Game become the world’s biggest show. Netflix’s share price doubled in the first 18 months of the pandemic, but 2022 is a very different place. Shares dropped 35 per cent last month when it revealed profits were down. Output on Apple TV+, NowTV, Prime Video and Disney+ is adding to the competition, just as consumers tighten their belts. So what next? Expect consolidation around its biggest hits – and if you’re sharing your password with Auntie Sylvia or Derek from next door, don’t be surprised if Netflix wants a word……

There is a reason why most novelists stick to the bits of life their readers will be familiar with. Break-up tales, crime thrillers and historical journeys are genres in their own right because we instantly know the remit, we know how it feels, what we’re in for. So Benjamin Myers has been typically daring in employing his florid pen to crop circles in the English countryside of the ’80s, for his scintillating The Perfect Golden Circle. That he manages to keep the reader’s attention throughout within such an esoteric field is an achievement in itself. The book’s two protagonists, Redbone and Calvert, are the perfect company the reader needs. They have come together for the summer months with a plan to create the most impressive, developed and artistic crop circles…

As he approaches 90, Michael Caine is the beloved, cuddly elder statesman of the UK film industry. For years it was traditional to poke fun at him for deigning to star in silly Eighties sequel Jaws 4: The Revenge as a beach bum whose seaplane is chomped by the great white. The imminent rerelease of 1971’s Get Carter – a brutal gangster tale that still feels queasily compelling over 50 years later – is a useful reminder that there was a time when Caine could have played the shark. His Jack Carter is unblinking, single-minded and lethal: a London gangland enforcer returning to his long-abandoned stomping ground of Newcastle to investigate the suspicious death of his brother. This belated journey home becomes the opening titles, an extended train ride north…

The sound of gravel crunching underfoot split the silence. Dandelion heads were still tightly clenched, ensconced in dewy leaves. The sky was waking, edged in pink and orange. As we entered the cemetery the air was filled with bird calls and cries. A blackbird sung from a blossom-clad branch; a robin issued a warning as we edged towards his tree. The large windows of Sheffield’s Samuel Worth Chapel were lit by candles. We took our seats in a circle, aware of the changing light around us. A French horn played from the wings, competing with the song thrush that had joined the avian choir. Contrary to appearances, this was not some sort of Masonic ritual; it was a sunrise concert hosted by Music in the Round, Sheffield’s annual chamber music…