Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/17/2025 i The Big Issue

→ It is unwise for an author to plan their success ahead of publication. But I’m excited about the novella I have just written and the chance that it might sell millions. A million would suit me fine. Digital, so that people can read it on their phone. I will also get some copies printed and go on a road tour in order to sell more and make more money. Half of what I make will go to Big Issue. Next year is my 80th birthday and I’m fascinated with the idea of making a lot of noise about it, and selling a million copies of Dirty Austen, my novella. I’m also fascinated as to why a poorly raised slum boy who often ate nothing managed to survive. My 80th,…

Awaab Ishak was only two when he died in December 2020. The coroner’s report into the tragedy, released two years later, found prolonged exposure to mould had contributed to the death of the toddler from Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Now, his father has spoken of his pride as Awaab’s Law comes into force to help millions of social housing tenants deal with damp and mould. Faisal Abdullah told us that the law will be a fitting legacy for his son. “My son has passed away now but this has left me a legacy that I can remember,” said Abdullah, who has campaigned for justice and to save lives in social housing since the news of his son’s death shocked Britain. “It will make other people safe and they are grateful for…

→ When I first stepped into social housing maintenance, I thought the job would be a simple case of repairing properties. But it didn’t take long to realise the bigger picture: it wasn’t just homes that needed fixing, but rather the housing providers and the broader systems within them, the way housing is run, managed, and delivered. Many housing providers have lost their way, detaching themselves from the people they were meant to serve. Bureaucracy gets in the way of common sense, mismanagement has been normalised. Centralised call centres are overloaded, jobs are logged incorrectly and passed between departments that barely communicate. Critical repairs fall through the cracks, leaving tenants in unsafe conditions. There are a lot of good people working in housing; they’re the ones keeping things running day…

Colm Tóibín wrote the short story A Long Winter a long time ago, in 2005. We are very lucky that he has republished it as a standalone. This is a piece of brilliant and evocative prose. It also packs such a powerful literary punch that it needs to be read in fruitful isolation. Tóibín has spent a fair amount of time in Catalonia. This novella is set in the sparsely populated Spanish foothills of the Pyrenees. It seems we’re a fair way back in time; like many details in this story, time and place are never certain. Miquel lives with his family on their small farm, growing up while his mother falls into alcoholism and his father becomes ever more anguished. One day, Miquel’s mother leaves. Miquel thinks she has…

↓ GET IN TOUCH The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissueuk @bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK thebigissue ISSUE 1692 Bought a Big Issue x5 from someone struggling but determined. Every magazine sold is a step towards dignity – thank you, John Bird & Gordon Roddick for starting this. @passionatelypurposefulmac MY WORLD AS I FIND IT Send us your image, or photo you’ve captured, of Britain today with a brief description. On socials or email letters@bigissue.com Notes on a scandal How many more BBC scandals will there have to be before the government of the day steps in and sorts it out? The Trump speech fiasco is only the latest. In just the last 12 months or so, we have also had allegations of bullying and drug…

I was very earnest as a teenager. I’d like to think that wasn’t at the expense of joy, but I felt a huge burden of responsibility. I was a member of a faith community, raised in the LDS church, what people know as Mormons, and was very committed. I was often the only Mormon my friendship group knew, so I felt the burden of representing my faith. I was the sober driver. I feel I had a typical New Zealand upbringing. I grew up in a small town, we lived in a little orchard, I had a pet lamb! I learned to drive a tractor before a car and had a motorbike I would zip around on. So it felt like I had lots of freedom. In the 1980s, we…

Christian Weaver, the barrister representing Awaab’s family, on the long journey to justice → When I first met Awaab Ishak’s parents, Faisal and Aisha, it was clear that all they had ever wanted was for someone to listen. They had reported the mould issue countless times. They had begged for help. But their warnings went unheeded. At the inquest, the facts were devastating. Their home was deemed “unfit for human habitation” and the family had been told that the conditions were the result of their “lifestyle” – a claim the coroner made clear had no basis in fact. Rochdale Boroughwide Housing even suggested the problem could be linked to the family’s “ritual bathing habits” – an offensive and baseless assumption. The family were understandably bemused, having always simply used the…

→ Star Road in Isleworth is the sort of semi-suburban street found all over the outskirts of London: a mix of semi-detached houses, terraces and new-build flats. Somewhere on this street, though, somebody got rich and the council paid the bill. In 2016, they bought their council house under Right to Buy for the discounted price of £272,662. Hounslow Council had no choice, under law, but to sell. When the ex-tenant came to sell up in 2023, there was a willing buyer: Hounslow Council. They paid market value, and – because the seller waited more than five years – could not recoup any of the discount. The seller received £575,000. After just six years, the council was out of pocket to the tune of £302,338. It’s one of more than…

My father-in-law Peter Pallai died last month. My family is in mourning. Of course, there is a hierarchy of grief, and my primary focus is on supporting my wife, who has lost an incredible father, and my children, who have lost a brilliant grandad. I don’t want to make it all about me (honestly). But as I observe all the protocols of grief, I can’t help thinking (just occasionally, you understand) ‘WHAT ABOUT ME?’ People never think about the son-in-law, do they? He was my mate, my mentor and my role model. And he has left a massive gap in my life. I first met him 30 years ago, in a pub in Brighton. I suppose he was giving me the once-over to see if I would make a suitable…

I remember dolphins in Africa and elephants in their wild habitats I’ve been in the UK for almost two years now. I left in 1988 and started a family in France. I worked internationally in many, many different places. I was in the oil industry so I had a good job, started in ’73, left in 2018, so that’s a long time. I was living the dream really. I had a very good job, quite affluent. There are so many memories from my time abroad. I worked in a lot of places and I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I remember, dolphins in Africa and whales and elephants in their wild habitats. Siberia, Russia, China, the Great Wall... I’ve been very privileged. I worked in Africa and every…

→ Big Issue’s survey on social interactions throws up many findings. Social connection is really fraying across the country. In any given week, more than 40% of people don’t have any real interactions with people they don’t know. And over half the time, our colleagues who sell Big Issue to make a living are being ignored. This is not a surprise. The desiccation of human interaction has been a reality for some time. Polling continues to show that increasingly people are more comfortable with digital communication than with real life. According to YouGov last year, 38% of people across the world prefer digital. A 2021 poll by Natterhub – an online safety platform – found that only 23% of kids from 5-11 years old preferred in person to digital. Admittedly,…

As the festive lights begin to twinkle, it’s clear the glow is not evenly shared. For some, a home means warmth, security and celebration. For others, it’s a grotty or unaffordable place, a temporary shelter or insecure lease. Housing remains the setting of deep inequality – and the place from where credible plans for social renewal must grow. We are at a significant hinge moment for housing in Britain. In October, the long-awaited Rental Rights bill became an Act and Awaab’s Law was passed, changing the game for social housing. Neither will fix all the shortcomings that exist. But they are welcome significant steps. Last week homeless charity Crisis said 300,000 households in England were experiencing the worst forms of homelessness: from sleeping rough to living in B&Bs. Meanwhile, the…

For renters and buyers looking at a new home, the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating traditionally figured somewhere below the shower water pressure and the rattle of the doors on a list of priorities. Yet it is set to become essential. New government rules mean rented homes must be brought up to a rating of C or above. This is likely to be costly. Insulating internal and external walls costs, on average for one home, £18,700. A replacement boiler will set retrofitters back roughly £2,000. For replacement double glazing, that’s an average bill of £6,400. Government estimates the cost to landlords at up to £6,800. And anything with the whiff of woke eco waste is not an easy sell. Previous government schemes to insulate homes have been botched, with the…

Comic books have been good to Benedict Cumberbatch. Being cast as a contemporary Holmes in TV hit Sherlock may have made him a household name but it was his even haughtier turn as a supreme sorcerer in Doctor Strange and five more Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that made him a Hollywood superstar. His ability to mime fizzing firework circles with a straight face has probably allowed him to afford some notable additions to his collection of fine art. So it seems fitting that almost a decade after donning the swirling cloak of Stephen Strange, Cumberbatch is playing an actual comic book artist. But while The Thing with Feathers sounds like it could be a Fantastic Four adventure where orange rock monster Ben Grimm gets genetically spliced with a flamingo, it…

The anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis is the “quietest place on Earth”. A room so terrifyingly silent it can drive occupants to the brink of madness. In this Minnesotan facility – used for all from testing dishwasher volumes to training astronauts to cope with the frightening noiselessness of space – boffins have taken the quest for a moment’s peace to bonkers levels. In a steel box suspended by springs inside foot-thick concrete walls, there exists a void that kills soundwaves as effectively as Mr Muscle does kitchen germs (99.9% of them). At latest world-record-breaking rating in 2021, it measured a whopping -24.9 decibels. It’s so supersonically silent that people who spend time within report hearing the sounds of their own bodies – the thumping of their hearts, the…