Table of contents for 4/14/2025 in The Big Issue

Get in touch The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW etters@bigissue.com @bigissueuk @bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @thebigissue Paid our dues I have just read your article where someone suggests a land tax on houses [on bigissue.com]. Do you really think homeowners are living the life of riley? Forty-three years ago, I was living in a bedsit with my wife and our baby son on a council waiting list and then blessed with a housing association flat. After 10 happy years living there, our circumstances changed through hard work, and we managed to scrape enough money together to buy a small house on the open market. We eventually sold that and moved to our current house, living here for the last 22 years. It’s been a long journey…

In September 1969, a petroleum engineer named Brendan McKeown arrived at Aramco’s Great Yarmouth office holding a pickle jar. He dumped the contents – dredged from the bottom of the North Sea – into an ashtray and threw in a lit match. The liquid burned. “That’s it,” his boss reportedly said. “That’s oil.” McKeown had transported the black gold from the Sea Quest drilling rig, the first to strike gold in the North Sea. The discovery birthed one of the UK’s most lucrative industries – and altered British politics forever. “It’s Scotland’s Oil” became the Scottish National Party’s clarion call, but only a fraction of industry profits ever made it north of the border. Instead, oil money bankrolled Margaret Thatcher’s sweeping tax cuts and enabled the privatisation of state-owned industries.…

A free exhibition featuring 700 unique artist-designed 7” vinyl record sleeves for seven star musicians including The Cure, Jessie Ware and Keane has gone on display in London. At the end of the exhibition’s run in June, the records will be auctioned off in support of War Child, the charity working to improve the wellbeing of children living with violence and armed conflict worldwide. Participating artists include fashion designer Sir Paul Smith, Turner Prize-winning sculptor Antony Gormley OBE RA, Stanley Donwood (the man behind Radiohead’s iconic album covers), The Cure’s legendary frontman Robert Smith and many more. Buyers won’t know which artist – world-renowned or emerging – has designed their sleeve until after auction. Nor will they know which musician and which song the sleeve is for. Could it be…

Everyone knows Andrew Tate now. In 2022, the extreme misogynist made world headlines after amassing millions of followers online and recruiting thousands of young men into his online ‘academy’, a scamming operation where these men were paid to recruit others. Tate went viral by spreading an aggressively misogynistic discourse – he described married women as men’s “property” – and speaking to young men’s grievances, as well as selling false ‘solutions’ to their problems. Since Tate hit the headlines, hundreds of influencers like him have sprung up and are shaping young men’s views. Misogynistic podcasts are receiving millions of downloads per episode. In the space of a few years, the ‘manosphere’ to which Tate belongs – or male supremacist ideology as I and other researchers call it – has travelled from…

You won’t find me in a Jacuzzi. I’m not made for the Jackie Collins life. But last week, the rarest of exceptions occurred, because I was at the Laugharne Weekend – everything is different there. Four left-wing comedians spoke of the revolution as the bubbles bubbled and my trunks were bleached by the germ-free water. Champagne socialism? Well, it was cava from the corner shop, but it’s always important to remember the words of Alexei Sayle: “Champagne socialism means champagne for EVERYONE!” Travelling to Laugharne I see the beauty of Wales and also the industrial destruction. When you see so much beauty and poverty hand in hand, it is impossible not to be angry that successive governments have allowed this to happen. And now there’s austerity again. Once in Laugharne,…

JAMES COX, 43 I’ve only been selling Big Issue magazine for five or six weeks now and it’s been good, I’ve been selling a fair few. Big Issue has sorted out a QR code for me so that people can just scan it to buy the magazine as I can’t get on the contactless system yet. They’re helping me get a passport so I have photo ID then I’ll be able to get that. But the QR code is working out perfectly at the moment because obviously a lot of people since lock-down don’t carry cash. I’ve been homeless since I was 13 years old and I’m 43 now. I’m sleeping on the streets at the moment. I’m originally from Weston-super-Mare but I didn’t get much help over there, I…

World War II made America great. Trump’s trade war may be its undoing Apparently if you are a European jam and marmalade maker, up until Trump’s intervention you’d only pay a 4% tariff to sell into the United States; yet if you were a US jam or marmalade maker selling into Europe you’d pay around 60% tariff – etc, etc. As presented by Trump, the eye-watering amount the US pays to trade in the world, if true, does make you think. Surely the talk of a Trump trade war hides the fact that the trade war against the US has been going on for many, many decades. And that this irritated simpleton of a successful politician is simply righting the wrongs of these years of anti-Americanism. When World War II…

Just Stop Oil, the infamous climate campaign group, announced last month that they were “hanging up the hi-vis”. They called themselves “one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history”, pointing to the Labour Party’s pledge to end new oil and gas exploration as proof of their impact. It’s a bold claim. For many, Just Stop Oil will be remembered less for policy wins and more for chaos: blocking motorways, halting sports events and throwing soup at priceless art. Their tactics were condemned by politicians and pundits alike. They were called “eco-zealots” and even compared to terrorists. The public mostly agreed. A 2023 YouGov poll showed 64% of people disapproved of the group. A significant majority of the British public think disruptive protest tactics hinder activists’ cause. While…

I’m 23. I was seven when the global financial crisis hit, nine when the Tories began a decade of austerity that gutted schools, youth centres and an NHS which I relied on more than most as someone living with diplegic cerebral palsy. These cuts were deeply challenging for disabled people like me. For my generation, cuts, chronic underinvestment and skyrocketing inequality has been our constant. The result? A sicker population, a raging mental health crisis and hollowed-out communities. It’s no surprise our economic outlook today is so bleak, with many young graduates like me trying desperately for months to find jobs whose wages often do not keep up with the cost of food, rent and bills. And that’s after an education deeply disrupted by the pandemic. Then there is the…

I had a very rebellious streak when I was 16 because I had massive attachment disorder, which I think came from being adopted. I had a very lovely family, they are wonderful. I love them very much. But being adopted threw up an identity crisis for me, and I was always struggling with that, searching for love in the wrong places. I was just a mixed-up kid who didn’t have any idea of what they wanted to do with their life. It was a hard time and I made bad mistakes. And I think what I was doing, in hindsight, though I didn’t realise it at the time, I was always running to the next thing, to the next adventure, to the next boyfriend. And a lot later in life…

Operation Mincemeat was a masterstroke of misdirection. In 1943, British intelligence dressed a dead body as a Royal Marines officer, planted fake invasion plans then arranged for it to wash up on Spanish shores where enemy spies would feed the fake news back to Berlin. The ruse tricked the Nazis into believing the allies were planning to get a foothold on Italy via Sardinia rather than Sicily. It’s a great story of deception and ingenuity. But a great story to adapt into a frantic, farcical musical that would become the toast of the West End and now Broadway? That seems as far-fetched as the original mission. Yet that’s exactly what comedy troupe SpitLip have achieved. It’s not the first time this story has been told: one of the masterminds behind…

Last weekend’s annual Record Store Day (12 April) was another celebration of the world of the physical music product and the cherished places that sell it. The release list featured nearly 450 different limited-edition albums, EPs and singles by all from Taylor Swift to Charli XCX, David Bowie and A Tribe Called Quest. Almost all exclusively on vinyl. Snapped up eagerly by fans and collectors countrywide, they gave a welcome financial boost to independent shops, labels, artists and the music ecosystem at large. RSD is plainly a positive force. But the elephant in the room is the environmental ramifications of pumping out so much new plastic. The majority of vinyl records are manufactured from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) – one of the most environmentally damaging plastics. It can take nearly 500…

Last week, a man dressed as a giant rat stood up at a city council meeting in Birmingham to ask about the ongoing bin-collection strikes. He said he was the Selly Oak Rat. I think it was a man. The rats rummaging amongst the uncollected 21,000 tonnes (21,000!) of rubbish in the city recently hit the ‘size of a small kitten’ stage. By the time you read this, they may have got to the size of a dire wolf. Or a big man. The response to the giant rat’s query was as expected – that a major incident had been declared and rubbish, at least some, was being collected. But the problem, that has been growing for over a month, remains. It’s tied to bin workers’ anger at what they…

To mark Earth Day, which falls on 22 April this year, we asked kids to ‘Go Wild’ and create eye-catching designs for a magazine cover with an environmental theme. The youngsters of Britain did not let us down. We received hundreds of submissions and the imagination, dedication and talent on display was a thrill to behold. Our chief judge was naturalist, broadcaster and Big Issue Ambassador Chris Packham, who was given a hand by Darren Barker, design lead at giffgaff. After much deliberation, Ashton Whitaker, aged 10 from Hull, was selected as our winner with his marvellous menagerie of endangered animals. Ashton’s mum Siegann says he was “buzzing” after being told the news. Ashton said: “I was surprised when I was told I won but it feels good. “I wanted…

I’ve always been drawn to brave writing. That bravery can be in the form or style of a book, the content or subject matter, or the urgency and clarity with which the author addresses their topic. This week we have two books that, in very different ways, exhibit remarkable bravery, but in both instances you suspect the author had no other way to write. First up is the clear-eyed and coruscating One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. The Egyptian-Canadian author has written two prize-winning novels, but it’s his experience as a journalist that’s to the fore in this precise and furious non-fiction book. As a reporter for The Globe and Mail in Canada, El Akkad has covered the War on Terror, Guantanamo Bay…

Brandi Carlile is in dreamland. The beloved singer-songwriter and activist might have 11 Grammys and a pair of Emmys, but her new album tops the lot. Because Who Believes In Angels? is a collaboration with childhood idol Elton John, a meeting of musical minds resulting in a barnstorming blend of her Americana and his rock’n’roll piano magic. Their friendship goes way back. But this is new territory for Carlile. Talking to Big Issue ahead of the duo’s recent show at the London Palladium, Carlile looks back at a tough childhood and recalls the inspiration she took from Elton growing up queer in rural Washington State. Did you find yourself communing with your teenage self making this album? I found myself revisiting my younger self and getting snapped back into that…