Innholdsfortegnelse for 29-07-19 i The Big Issue

Think of the Premier League and you think of a world far removed from holiday hunger. The richest league in the world, as it is dubbed, usually sees the summer off-season months dominated with multimillion-pound transfer fees exchanged for new players. Meanwhile, three million children suffer from holiday hunger every summer in Britain – when their parents cannot afford to pay for the extra meal a day while their kids are off school and so miss out on free meals. But the loss of Premier League matches coinciding with the school summer holidays can act as a double whammy for foodbanks, which are already struggling to stock their shelves. Football supporters up and down the country – from Rangers and Celtic to several clubs in the north of England and…

Burt understands that there are many people without a family around them who need support just as much, so his programme adapts to work with disadvantaged individuals too. “In LA, we’re working with the Salvation Army and the University of California, Irvine to apply the Stoplight to homeless people,” he says. “And in New Orleans, we’re working with a local NGO called Roots of Renewal to help formerly incarcerated black youth get back on their feet. “In marginalised populations we work with social workers and adapt the indicators to account for the discrimination they could face. But the goal is the same: figure out their strengths and weaknesses, make a plan and guide them to action.”…

“Politicians can sit there and blame everybody else in the world, but as far as I’m concerned, the state has a responsibility to provide homes for those most in need.” Architect George Clarke is the amiable presenter of a host of Channel 4 home building and home improvement shows. On programmes like Restoration Man and Amazing Spaces he follows inspirational architectural projects offering an expert’s eye and warm support to dreamers building brighter futures. The shows have made him a national treasure. But Clarke is furious about the housing crisis and the way council housing has been undermined, sold off and almost fatally diminished in recent decades. His new documentary – released to mark the centenary of the Addison Act, the almost revolutionary Parliamentary bill which in 1919 heralded a…

The top 10 building firms are hoarding more than 600,000 plots up and down the country. But why would they sit on land instead of building the homes that will ease the housing crisis and make them a profit? Well, the slowdown in housebuilding since the 1970s has pushed the average price of a new-build home up by 38 per cent since 2010, compared with an average of 30 per cent for houses more widely. But the eye-watering profits creamed off by the builders in the following years (not to mention the dividends for their shareholders) provoked the government review last year under Tory MP Oliver Letwin.…

Every year in the Basque city of Pamplona between July 6-14 there is a festival called San Fermín. The city celebrates its saint with drinking, dancing, fireworks, religious ceremonies, gigantes (giant figures that dance through the streets), and general partying. But this is not what the festival is famous for. Every morning they run six bulls through the streets at 8am. The bull run season is from February through to October all over Spain but the big one is Pamplona. This is probably due to Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises , which is the book that inspired my fascination with bull fighting. Last week I returned to Pamplona for my 62nd run. That’s right, 62nd. I once ran all eight mornings of the fiesta in 1989. I have written…

Veteran writer and director Spike Lee received his first Oscar earlier this year, a Best Adapted Screenplay award for BlacKkKlansman (co-starring Balance, Not Symmetry’s Laura Harrier). While that award was undoubtedly deserved, it also felt like a belated corrective from the Academy after it passed over Lee’s groundbreaking Do The Right Thing three decades ago. That tale of one hot summer in a fractious Brooklyn neighbourhood is back in cinemas to mark its 30th anniversary, and feels as fresh and energised as it did in 1989. Do The Right Thing is back in cinemas from August…

Brighton could become the first city in the UK to adopt a homeless bill of rights to give rough sleepers “equality, dignity and human rights”. The Brighton and Hove Housing Coalition brought their 2,500-signature petition to the city council last week to ask them to uphold 13 rights for homeless people, including among others the right to public spaces, to vote and to privacy. The bill of rights was designed by the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA), which has signed up a number of cities in Europe, most notably Barcelona. And Brighton could be next on the list after councillors agreed to put the bill to the housing committee to consider the fnancial implications. Chair of Brighton City Council’s housing committee John Allcock said: “I…

The rise in holiday hunger is a stain that should shame Britain. It’s an indictment of years of policies that punish those most in need. We at The Big Issue want to do all we can to help fght it. We have been providing a platform for the wonderful, selfless groups and individuals offering a hand up. But we want to hear of more, so tell us at editorial@bigissue.com. We will be the signpost for those in need, a way to celebrate good people. Then we will do our bit to make sure the groups are not needed in the future, by dealing with the core causes of holiday hunger. And you can read more about the campaign at bigissue.com…

There are too many coincidences between the new Prime Minister and the book he wrote glowingly in 2014 on the life of Winston Churchill, The Churchill Factor. Johnson sees himself as a Churchillian; how else can you describe the cock-ups, the mistakes, the bad judgement, the ‘in and out of favour’. And the ability at times to laugh at himself. Churchill would not have been remembered for his up and down life if it were not for his brilliant impression of a bulldog, both in looks and pronouncements, in the early 1940s. Not wavering over opposition to the German war ambition. Not accepting compromise or hiding behind a spurious neutrality. There would be no surrender, no capitulation. And even without the arms or the soldiers he continued to harass and…

1919 The Housing, Town Planning Act is introduced by Minister for Health Dr Christopher Addison to subsidise housebuilding to help finance 500,000 new homes within three years, largely for soldiers returning from the war. Only 213,000 are completed, but what becomes known as The Addison Act is subsequently established as the model for council housing as we know it 1924 The Housing Act gives grants to local councils to build housing and firms up a legal obligation for councils to have housing available for those most in need 1930 A new Housing Act focuses on slum clearance, demolishing poor-quality housing and replacing it with new council house builds 1945 Over 156,000 prefabricated temporary homes  built in the wake of the Second World War 1951 The Tories are elected, pledging to…

What should the urban spaces of the future look like? Many city planners, policymakers, and trendspotters today are obsessed with complicated digital ‘solutions’ to the problems of urban life, such as autonomous vehicles, sensor-embedded streets, and delivery drones. But I’d argue that those are just higher-tech versions of the status quo. In contrast, the future of cities should be shaped by an idea that first found large-scale expression in the UK 100 years ago: the right to good housing for everyone. The 1919 Addison Act provided financing for the construction of half a million council houses, which more than any other policy embodied the idea of a right to housing. This year’s 100th anniversary is a good opportunity to think about the role public housing should play in the towns…

Identity is a two-way street. It’s not simply a question of what you yourself feel your identity to be – for it to have meaning, it has to be recognised by others. I can feel British to my fingertips, but if employers refuse to extend the rights that go with citizenship, if my neighbours ostracise me, abuse me as a foreigner and drive me from my home, my identity isn’t a great deal of use to me. If, when I complain to the government, the state stands with my unscrupulous employer or my bigoted neighbour, my sense of nationhood is worth even less. If your family has, within living memory, been forced to uproot itself due to political turmoil or some other disaster, the fragility of identity is keenly felt.…

On July 16, I stood on Cocoa Beach in Florida and looked across the water. Fifty years previously, the Saturn V rocket took off from there, propelling Mike Collins, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin towards the moon. I was there to record an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage for Radio 4, renamed The Infinite Moonkey Cage for one show only because if a pun is possible, BBC guidelines insist on it. A few minutes later, I was sat in a small hotel conference room with Gerry Griffin, an Apollo flight director, Rusty Schweickart of Apollo 9, and Andy and Jan Aldrin, children of Buzz. Though the show was broadcast on the anniversary of the lunar landing, this was not a discussion dominated by nostalgia, a revelling in the past…

You know what it’s like: you look forward to your break for months, you pack your case, head off, get ready to kick back and enjoy a little downtime, and what happens? Donald Trump follows you. Bloody typical! That was how Tom Morello felt when he headed to the UK this summer to enjoy a relaxing time as tour support to Muse. As Tom touched down, The Donald arrived for his state visit. Tom wasn’t delighted. It’s fair to say that the former Rage Against The Machine guitarist is not a fan. Not. One. Bit. “The Trump business is so exhausting in the United States that I thought I’d have a little respite from it!” he tells The Big Issue. “But it turns out that he followed me. In our…

I don’t want to be stuck in one place too long. I’ll think I’ll probably travel till the day I die I’ve always liked to travel. Right now I’m in Ullapool surrounded by hills. Last year I walked from Lands End to John O’Groats for The Big Issue Foundation. I was averaging 26 to 30 miles a day. It was a big journey and I was exhausted at the end but I saw some amazing places. After I completed the walk in November last year I had to go for a hernia operation and ended up with a haematoma. I had the hernia before the walk but when I was doing a bit of the West Highland Way I fell down the Devil’s Staircase and broke a rib. But I’m…

Last week Paul Kelly was buried. Paul was our friend and colleague who was brutally killed on June 15. A man has been charged with his murder. Paul was buried in a quiet graveyard just south of Glasgow. It was brief and simple and still, conducted at graveside, with no church or temple service beforehand. The sun shone. The grave is on a hill looking to the Campsie Fells on one side and down into Glasgow on the other. It’s a family plot and following his father’s death Paul spoke about the place, a lovely wee place, he told me. He said he hoped to be there too some day, beside his parents. Just not so soon. Paul’s family and friends were all gathered there last week, sad, but comforting…

Big Issue vendors often find themselves financially excluded simply because they do not have a fixed address – so we have teamed up with innovative venture ProxyAddress to help them access vital financial products and services. The system, founded by architect Chris Hildrey in 2017, will allow vendors to access bank accounts without the need for proof of address, using empty homes in the UK to create a duplicate ‘proxy’ address for data purposes. Giving vendors an address will let them apply for jobs, get a GP, open a bank account and apply for forms of identification that could prove crucial to helping them participate in society. This will also help them offer cashless payments to customers, which is a key Big Issue push this year. Beth Thomas, The Big…

FOOD CARDIFF @ THE WILD THING CAFE, CARDIFF Before Lauren Saunders founded Cardiff’s Wild Thing cafe, a vegan eatery set up to fight climate change and end food poverty, she was a Big Issue outreach worker in Swansea. Now, she has teamed up with local charity Food Cardiff to bring a pioneering event to the people in her neighbourhood who need it most over the holidays. The cafe will host a free community supper club which will use excess food from that day’s business as well as fruit and vegetables from local allotments to put on a spread for struggling locals. Nearby schools are getting involved too. Lauren will be working with pupils enrolled on school holiday programmes created to teach them how to take a truly healthy, environmentally friendly…

How do you measure poverty? Ask Martín Burt, founder of deprivation-busting programme Poverty Stoplight. The model is now used in 27 countries around the world, using in-depth questionnaires and a traffic light system to help families pull themselves out of poverty. The Stoplight has been used by 120,000 households across the globe, and Burt is keen to note that it’s not about removing responsibility from governments or sidestepping structural issues – but giving those in poverty the agency they are so often stripped of. Burt has been busy. The 62-year-old father of three founded the Paraguay Foundation in 1985, a social enterprise dedicated to the economic empowerment of disadvantaged people. He was mayor of Paraguayan capital Asunción from 1996 until 2001 and served as chief of staff to the president…

01 The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell Esme Lennox apparently has hallucinations, following childhood experiences with the Raj. Her family, helped by her perfect older sister, has her committed to a lunatic asylum, where she stays for the next 60 years. When the asylum closes down Esme has the chance to confront the past. 02 The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry The theme of closing down asylums continues in Barry’s haunting story about Roseanne McNulty, a forgotten centenarian, long-time resident of the Roscommon regional mental hospital about to be released into contemporary Ireland. Patient turns chronicler in a rich story of misfortune and malfeasance. 03 His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet This historical thriller purports to be a 17-year-old Highland crofter’s memoir, written while awaiting trial…

Is this the real life or is this just fantasy? A definitive answer one way or another might help explain the sudden rush of music-related movies at the local multiplex. Hollywood has always provided a steady flow of muso documentaries and rock biopics, and the check-1-2 punch of the Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody followed by Rocketman means plenty more musical origin stories are on their way. But these perennials have recently been joined by a gaggle of intriguing films approaching their subjects from often unexpected angles. Look at the cheeky Beatles-deleting fantasia Yesterday. Or the Natalie Portman-starring Vox Lux, a fictional biopic of a highly strung pop star featuring music by Scott Walker and Sia. Or the upcoming Blinded By The Light, in which Springsteen’s righteous blue-collar anthems help a British-Pakistani…

Sara Pascoe, comedian, below “Football taught me the importance of rebellion. At my school girls were not allowed to play the sport in PE and that meant the boys wouldn’t let girls play at lunchtime. My sister and I made many enemies by playing on the same pitch, at the same time as the boys, with a ball we’d brought from home. It’s what Cantona would’ve done!” Jason Mohammad, presenter of BBC’s Final Score “As a football presenter on TV and radio – you can imagine how much I love the game. I’ll watch any game on TV and love being at Cardiff City matches. I went to the reopening of my old school recently in Caerau in Cardiff, and the memories came flooding back as I stood…

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