John Bird
Founder and Editor-in-Chief at The Big Issue
Founder and Editor-in-Chief @BigIssue | Crossbencher @UKHouseofLords
Articles
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1 week ago |
bigissue.com | John Bird
It is the loss of belief in the effectiveness of government itself that registers most worryingly Lord Salisbury, the prime minister at the end of the Victorian 19th century and the beginning of the 20th reputedly said that “whatever happens will be for the worse”. Hence “don’t do things”; and do your best to keep things as they are. Certainly Keir Starmer must recognise this condition as his 10 months in office has proved.
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2 weeks ago |
bigissue.com | John Bird
In Middlemarch, many of the characters suffer from 'the debris of history' – things haven't changed I am finally drawing to a close with the largest novel I have read in decades. Nearly 700 pages. George Eliot’s Middlemarch is like a compendium of people who you see – before they do – what a wretched mistake they are about to make. How it will all end up, untangle itself, I have no idea. But by the time you read this I will have reached the end and will know the outcome.
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3 weeks ago |
bigissue.com | John Bird
Our class system is unchanged since the Victorian times. That's why we're in such a mess The ninepenny wash and brush-up at Waverley station in Edinburgh was the best I have ever had. A wash and brush-up was where you got to half-strip in a bathroom and got in a good clean, with razors for shaving to add to the sense of cleanliness. Going into J Sainsbury pre-supermarket – when it was an old-fashioned Victorian-looking place – to buy a halfpenny’s worth of broken biscuits was a joy.
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1 month ago |
bigissue.com | John Bird
In all of John's weekly columns for Big Issue, there's one overriding topic that keeps the ink and ideas flowing Each Wednesday morning I rise early and begin the process of writing my 800/900 word column. For 30 years I have been doing the same. That’s about 45,000 words a year, multiplied by 30 equals 1,350,000 words. One day I hope to go through this mountain of words and extract the most useful of them. Some, I remember, are precise and clever, thoughtful and clear.
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1 month ago |
bigissue.com | John Bird
Too many people suggest we have entered a ‘truthless’ time, when the old politenesses of hiding reality has simply been kicked around and devalued The Guardian insists that we need truth now more than ever, at a time when we are led to believe that truth has been devalued wholesale. ‘Truth’, what is true, they say, is being destroyed; and that leads to a weakening and potential collapse of our civilisation.
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And so this government, like those who came before, muddle through, caring more for the immediate than ensuring an enduring and better long-term future. Shuffling into the future and carrying poverty with them. It’s time to hold their feet to the fire. https://t.co/BdCJnn2WLu
Legally-binding targets to reduce child poverty could help turn flimsy political promises into actual change in people's lives. Stand with the @BigIssue: https://t.co/ydiZVYtdlr https://t.co/ISANZ4PWcW
I would hate to see us return to the painful poverty of the years from which I came. My new amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill would place a new duty on the government to set targets for the reduction of child poverty. https://t.co/6yz1ZGo2rX