Innholdsfortegnelse for 4/10/2023 i The Big Issue

BIG PICTURE The international community showing unity in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine took a hugely significant step last week as Finland became the 31st member of Nato. Finland, which had previously not sought membership of the alliance saw 80 per cent of the population want to join in the wake of Putin’s actions. As the Finnish flag was raised outside Nato’s headquarters in Brussels, on the 74th anniversary of the organisation’s establishment in 1949, Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General said “this will make Finland safer and Nato stronger”. Finland shares a 1,340km (832-mile) border with Russia, and with Nato’s musketeer-like maxim, any attack on the country would be taken as an attack on all members. Scandinavian neighbour Sweden has also applied to join after decades of…

OPINION School absence is at a crisis point. The number of children absent from school more often than not has reached an all-time high. A new report from The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has found that the number of severely absent so-called ‘ghost children’ reached 140,000 in the summer of 2022. That’s a 134 per cent increase compared to before the pandemic. And one in four children are now persistently absent, missing more than 10 per cent of school on a regular basis. That’s nearly two million children, double the pre-pandemic rate of persistent absence. The CSJ first uncovered the issue of ‘ghost children’ when schools returned in autumn 2020. They found that, following school shutdowns, nearly 100,000 children had become severely absent. Even as schools have returned in…

I’ve had independence dangled over me then snatched away. It feels that, as a disabled person, I will never be allowed independenceISABELLE ATKINS Isabelle Atkins is 26 years old and wants to move out of her parents’ house – nothing remarkable about that. But because she is disabled, it is near impossible. Her council assumes she can live with her parents indefinitely, so she has plummeted down the social housing list. And there are next to no affordable, accessible homes for private renters. Atkins, who is a wheelchair user, watched her peers leave home for university while she stayed in her childhood home. She graduated with a master’s degree and works for a charity, but has spent the last six months struggling with house hunting, while despairing at a broken…

HOUSING Renters who complain are twice as likely to be evicted by their landlord Private renters who complained to their landlord about conditions in their home are more than twice as likely to be evicted from their home than tenants who have kept quiet, a new YouGov poll has shown. Tenants who complained to landlords, letting agents or the local authority over the last three years were 159 per cent more likely to be handed an eviction notice. The threat of eviction meant a quarter of private renters – equivalent to just over two million people – were afraid to complain to their landlord in case they were kicked out of their home. The poll, which quizzed two million renters in England on behalf of housing charity Shelter, showed the…

PREVIEW A gripping heist thriller to make climate activism sexy Right now, protest is under attack. Our legal rights to organise and demonstrate are being restricted, all while anti-protest messaging hinders social movements from gathering momentum. As a result, climate protesting is suffering: debates on the legitimacy of last year’s Just Stop Oil demonstrations undercut their intended impact, and Extinction Rebellion have just recently announced drawing back altogether from disruptive tactics. So if peaceful activism is being criminalised, what do we lose by taking things up a notch? So argues How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Based on the manifesto of the same name by Swedish author and associate professor of human ecology Andreas Malm, Pipeline reimagines Malm’s argument that no movement has ever been successful without sabotage into a…

KELVIN GREGORY, 61 I’ve been selling The Big Issue since its inception back in 1991. I grew up a Thatcher teenager and became homeless when I was 16, living between bedsits, B&Bs and squats. I begged for a little bit and worked the squeegee buses, until one day I saw The Big Issue and thought, “I’ll have a bit of that.” Since then, I’ve sold up and down the country in Stirling, Glasgow, Cornwall, Nottingham (where I was also a hunt saboteur) and Manchester. I came back to London 17 years ago and settled in Clapham in South London with my partner, who I’ve been with for 14 years. I’ve always treated The Big Issue as my own business. After Covid, I signed on to see if I was entitled…

It must be weird to be Ross Kemp. One minute you’re a TV mechanic married to Martine McCutcheon, the next, you’re in LA talking to some kid who’s prepared to battle to the death with a rival gang and wondering, “How did he end up like this?” A few years later, and you’re looking a warlord in the eye in the Congo, then shivering on a Cardiff street, posing as a rough sleeper as everyone pretends not to see you. Then you’re presenting a prime-time Saturday night celebrity quiz show, and then you’re diving the site of the most British shipwreck of all time, Henry VIII’s Mary Rose, and worrying because your nose is too squishy for the “snot block”. “Yeah, the snot block,” says Kemp, demonstrating for me. “When…

CULTURE “Art is an essential part of me and my emotional wellbeing, a source of joy,” says Patrizia, who submits this artwork via the 240 Project, a London arts and health activity centre for those affected by homelessness and exclusion. “I’m fascinated by colour and form, natural and man-made environments, and the relationship between them. My interest is to create organic landscapes that combine these elements harmoniously.” 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 the artist.…

CULTURE ANALYSIS All it took was one gentle tweet from Gary Lineker to have the government’s attack dogs out in force. The usual lines were dutifully regurgitated. While immigration minister Robert Jenrick called for Lineker to “be shown a red card”, Tory Party deputy chair Lee Anderson went after the BBC. He tweeted: “You would think the Beeb is the official opposition in this country”. Despite evidence of the questionable cosiness between the Tory Party and the upper reaches of the BBC, this was a none-too-subtle warning to the corporation: pull your punches or charter renewal will be back on the agenda. But if the government had been paying attention, they would see much harsher criticisms, in full view of even bigger audiences. Not in current affairs, but mainstream…

Crossword CRYPTIC CLUES Across 1. Vagrant went first and was crushed underfoot (8)6. Confident of finding an ancient city in the Home Counties (4)8. Thin hotel in the heavens! (6)9. Showy rig has collapsed (6)10. Keeping redhead in for further tuition (10)12. Dog set about the heavy food (6)14. More enthusiastic wailer (6)15. Support the most excellent – although inferior (6-4)19. I’d another garment to take off (6)20. Violent person cavorting in a mac (6)21. Go round with the French to look amorously (4)22. Domestic regulation offering a degree of independence (4,4) Down 2. His progress was all downhill (4)3. Under-employed worker (5)4. It is first worn by baby (7)5. Follow mother’s principle (5)6. Peculiar way to set in rows (7)7. Aggrieved at being introduced after the penny dropped (8)11.…