Innholdsfortegnelse for 31-08-20 i The Big Issue

The Westminster government’s last-minute U-turn, extending a freeze on evictions, provided an essential breathing space for those hit hardest financially by Covid. It was a welcome move and something we in the Ride Out Recession Alliance had called for over the last number of weeks. It doesn’t fix the bigger problem. Jobs continue to be lost at a terrifying rate in Britain. As the end of the furlough scheme draws nearer, this could become an uncontrollable cull. The lowest paid in the most precarious jobs will bear the burden of the losses. And this could make homelessness spiral. The figure of 500,000 households heading into homelessness remains a prospect. Keeping people in jobs, and creating jobs and opportunities where they have been lost, is absolutely crucial as we navigate through…

Who would have guessed that the government’s biggest crisis so far in this pandemic year would come not over health or jobs but education? Boris Johnson’s government is still reeling from the A-level and GCSE fiasco and things are not looking much better when it comes to public confidence over the full reopening of schools in September. But draw back from the endless, empty political rhetoric about ‘levelling up’ and the pandemic has instead revealed an enduring, depressing truth. Our school system directly disadvantages poorer children, whether through the gaping private-state school divide, inequality in university access or our continued failure to establish a robust set of vocational qualifications. According to an Education Policy Institute report published earlier this week, even before the pandemic hit, the already stark gap between…

Stonewall Housing was set up in 1983, around the time these horrific crimes were taking place. Kids were getting kicked out of home after coming out and ending up on the streets of London, while young people were also arriving from across the UK where being gay just wasn’t an option back then. A group of ‘elders’ in the community knew they could be really vulnerable and wanted to do something about it. So they set up this collective to find somewhere safe for young LGBTQ+ people to go. And that’s exactly what they did. They found safe homes for them, they took them off the streets, they made sure there were good, positive adult LGBTQ+ role models for them. The alternative for some of the young people was to…

Fantasy fiction has an image problem. Literary beard strokers have long taken issue with books of magyk and faeries and daemons – unserious, they say; childish; “not another fucking elf ”. The revered Kazuo Ishiguro wandered into this disputed territory with his last novel, The Buried Giant, which featured – of all things! – a dragon. What was a canonical writer like Ishiguro doing, asked his critics, lowering himself like this? Well, The Buried Giant was great, and its dragon rocked. Then Ishiguro won the Nobel. Yah-boo to the snobs. Alex Pheby is similarly fresh to fantasy. A “serious” author whose last novel was based on the troubled life of James Joyce’s daughter Lucia, his Mordew is an emphatic, head-up-shoulders-back stride into the genre. Pheby isn’t doing things by half:…

Les Misérables In cinemas from September 4 Do you hear the people sing? Well, no. This dynamic French film may borrow its title from Victor Hugo’s beefy historical novel – itself often overshadowed by the bombastic Cameron Mackintosh-produced musical that, until recently, was still packing them in after 35 years – but it is more concerned with the here and now. Shot with bracing immediacy by writer/director Ladj Ly, it is set in Montfermeil in the eastern suburbs of Paris and paints a piecemeal portrait of a multicultural community trying to rub along among oppressive tower blocks and heavily graffitied streets. The searing La Haine – concerned with police brutality, riots and reprisals in the parts of Paris you don’t see on postcards – is about to get a 25th…

In the Seventies and Eighties, the Mafia ruled New York City with apparent impunity. Murder, drugs, money laundering and racketeering were widespread. The police were chasing their tails trying to keep up. Five mafia families presided over the lawlessness; their bosses were well-known celebrities, covered widely in the press. But the police couldn’t find a way of prosecuting any of them: they were cunning and remote, ordering henchmen to do their bidding without ever getting their own hands dirty. Cops could arrest Mafia soldiers for individual crimes but bosses would always find willing replacements to step straight into the void. And so the criminality never stopped. That was until a lawyer and professor called G Robert Blakey helped develop the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) laws, designed specifically to…

01. The NHS recommends finding a daily routine. Easier said than done when our lives look so little like they did six months ago. If you can, wake up, wind down, then go to bed around the same time each day. Try to avoid napping through the day. 02. This is a worrying time. It’s natural to worry. But you’ll find it easier to rest if you set aside time before bed to make a to-do list for the next day. You need to expel your worries, not have them churn around your mind. 03. You need to prepare yourself for sleep. Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine or a big meal can prevent your ability to fall asleep, let alone enter the crucial phase of deep sleep. Exercise is useful, just don’t…

It was another last-minute U-turn from the government. After weeks of tough campaigning and desperate pleas from cash-strapped tenants, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick announced an extension to the eviction ban for England and Wales just two days before the deadline. Set to be lifted on August 23, it will now run for another four weeks, at which point Parliament will have returned from recess. The move was what the Ride Out Recession Alliance (RORA) demanded. Hundreds of thousands of tenants, in precarious work and losing out on income because of the pandemic, were at risk of falling off a financial cliff-edge into homelessness. With the help of partners like Shelter and Generation Rent, plus sharp ideas from our readers, we shone a light on the preventable disaster ahead. The U-turn…

VENDORS: Not all vendors have been able to return to their pitches at once. Health issues mean some are shielding and areas of the country are subject to local lockdowns. We will continue to support vendors who need help until they can sell again. PPE: Safety is key, we do not want to risk any vendor or customer’s health. So we have provided ‘Welcome Back Packs’ for each vendor that include masks, gloves, sanitiser and wipes. Vendors will also be given waterproof bags to safely store magazines. PITCHES: Some pitches may have moved, depending on local safety measures and circumstances. A large number of vendors will now be offering contactless payment, but they will continue to accept cash – there is no indication that handling cash or magazines will transmit…

A council will pay compensation to a homeless man forced to quit his job aǽter it housed him three hours away – in what could set a crucial precedent for ‘working homeless’ people. The man was working two jobs to support his family when he went to Merton Council in London for support in late 2017 because he was struggling to hold down work with such a long commute. An investigation by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found the local authority did not take into account the man’s circumstances when offering him accommodation so far away, nor did it consider moving him closer to his jobs when he asked for help. The Ombudsman said it hoped this outcome would mean “other working homeless people will not be placed…

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have all been learning to live with the fear and anxiety caused by a virus that we cannot see; one which has had devastating consequences for people in almost every country of the world. Just as Covid-19 has become the ‘plague’ of our times, leprosy has been the scourge of poverty-stricken communities across the globe for thousands of years. No one knew how it was transmitted and there was no known cure. Even a few decades ago, more than five million people every year were still suffering severe disability and their lives were being destroyed physically, emotionally and socially because they were too late to receive an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. Leprosy is curable Since 1995, the World Health Organisation (WHO)…

Once upon a time – half a century ago – I had an uncomplicated relationship with football. It was the unrivalled sport of the masses; it gave a cloistered, emotionally insecure boy the apparent chance to connect with society as a whole; I went as often as I could to watch my team, Aldershot, stalwarts of the old Fourth Division; and, more than anything, football seemed a world away from the constipated snobberies of the rugby-playing public school where I spent much of the 1960s. The love affair was embodied in the pages of Soccer Digest, the magazine I co-founded in 1968 with a couple of like-minded school friends. We had a hundred or so external subscribers (including the famous philosopher AJ Ayer), it ran for a handful of issues,…

In 1984, I was listening to the radio when an interview with panicked women at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp came on. They were being evicted from the temporary shelters they had set up in front of the US military base in Newbury housing cruise missiles that were poised to strike the Soviet Union at any moment. The women made an impassioned call for backups – and then and there I decided to pack my bags and join them. On my very first action – a night-time incursion into the base with two other women – we were ordered by soldiers to lie spreadeagled at their feet while they taunted us with threats of rape and murder. A few weeks later, I was likely exposed to radiation at a break-in…

From the moment Boris Johnson urged us all to stay indoors in March, musical groups – from community choirs to samba bands – have faced a blanket ban on rehearsing and performing. The particular mechanics of brass playing have made a brass band return challenging. Research from Brass Bands England confirmed that playing a brass instrument increases the level of potentially contaminated airborne droplets (although at a lower level than singing or breathing). While socially distanced outdoor rehearsals are possible, this isn’t always practical. The realities of traditional rehearsals, often up to 30 people in close proximity in cramped bandrooms or church halls, make social distancing nigh-on impossible. Banders are circumspect about their change in circumstances, as Blackburn & Darwen Brass Band chairman Dave Stevens quips: “Who’s going to sacrifice…

NEED HELP? Why not get together with other Big Issue readers @BigIssue; @bigissueuk; facebook.com/bigissueuk Get the answers in next week's mag! Good luck 1. In which year was Queen Victoria’s coronation? 2. In which US state was Muhammad Ali born? 3. What is the symbol for potassium? 4. Which of the seven wonders is located in Egypt? 5. In the US, what month is Labor Day in? 6. What Took You So Long? was a solo UK Number One single in 2001 for which Spice Girl? 7. What animal is on the Levi’s logo? 8. Who wrote The Old Man and The Sea ? 9. Which Indiana Jones film came out in 1984? 10. Who was the last US president to only sit one term? 11. Who designed London’s St…

Seattle was one of the first cities in the US to be affected by Covid-19 back in February. After a long lockdown, vendors of the city’s street paper, Real Change, are back. They tell the stories of their return to the streets SHAWN WILSON I’ve been able to stay safe. I do what everyone else does, what I’m supposed to do. I keep a mask on, and I keep my distance from everyone. Throughout the virus, I’ve just been worried about my mom, mostly. I’m going home for her birthday. I have my flight booked. I have gotten enormous support from all of the community and my friends. They’ve helped me make some ends meet by doing yard work for some of my customers – several of my customers, as…

Things are not normal. I know this, you know this, the remote and previously cut off Great Andamanese tribes know this. The shadow of coronavirus has settled like a global patina. You could blame coronavirus focus for the lack of excitement over the polio eradication news. Last week the World Health Organisation declared that polio had been eradicated in Africa. That’s a hell of thing. Since 1996 a vaccine programme has been under way to beat the virus on the African continent. The numbers around this are staggering. Almost nine billion vaccines were administered. An estimated 1.8 million children were prevented from what the WHO call “crippling lifelong paralysis”. It is a remarkable achievement. Now only two nations – Pakistan and Afghanistan – have polio present in the population. And…

“It's a worrying time on so many levels and in so many areas of society, isn't it?” David Tennant is one of the finest actors of his generation. But the 49-year-old, whose career went stratospheric with Doctor Who, is also smart, engaged and very happy to talk politics. We are speaking via Zoom. Tennant has spent much of lockdown perfecting his videocall manner – no fiddling with his laptop or technological mishaps for him. Tennant’s (how to describe it… short, scripted, heightened-reality comedy drama series?) Staged, made with Michael Sheen and co-produced and co-starring his wife Georgia, is perhaps the best made-under-lockdownand-about-lockdown TV. “We’re all learning how to live through our computer screens aren’t we?” says Tennant, who is who is unfazed by technological advances. He can fly a TARDIS,…

“This painting was done during my Providence Row period,” explains Michael, referring to the support centre for people affected by homelessness in East London which has helped him out in the past. “They had an open night and this painting was sold to help raise funds for the services they provide. It mainly attempts to depict the ineptitude of some bird watchers. Acrylic on canvas.” Michael says that he is “doing okay” since returning to normal daily life following a tough period of isolation during lockdown. “But I do worry we might be at the start of an evil new world order,” he adds. 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.…

01 Superkid by Claire Freedman, illustrated by Sarah McIntyre What’s not to love about a picture book featuring a child superhero who flies around saving children from bullies and mountains of broccoli?! It’s written in wonderful rhyme, has fun illustrations, and ends with the empowering message that any child could be Superkid. 02 Supertato by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet Children will love this action-packed colourful picture book about a super potato battling an evil pea, while grownups will enjoy the hilarious veggie-puns. Everyone will be hap-pea! 03 My Brother Is A Superhero by David Solomons I laughed out loud throughout this book, and, as someone who grew up in south-east London, it was great to read a superhero story set in Bromley! 04 Greta and the Giants by Zoe…

I didn’t know I had a problem until I had a problem. Or, more specifically, I didn’t know I had a problem until I was face down on the cold, wooden floor of my living room, with tears running down my cheeks. It’s 4am and I have just fallen over. Minutes ago I was asleep, in a fashion anyway. Just another of my nightly excursions; out of bed, around the flat, sometimes even out of the front door. I woke up tonight as I was falling, my face inches from the floor. As I sit there, bruised, crumpled, I try to remember the last night that hasn’t been curtailed by an accident, or being woken up by my wife because I am singing at the top of my lungs (bizarrely,…

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