Throughout this election period we have challenged party leaders to get to grips with the most insidious issue corroding Britain today – poverty.
In our Big Issue Blueprint for Change we set out key policies we believe will help lift millions out of the deep poverty trap they are in and help build to a better future. In recent weeks more than 12,000 Big Issue readers and backers have signed a petition to demand an end to poverty following the 4 July vote.
This week our ambassadors Daniel Mays, Christopher Eccleston and George Clarke joined the push. We have taken this call to the two men who are fighting to be the next prime minster, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, and to John Swinney and Sir Ed Davey, the two other leaders likely to see their parties command the next largest collection of seats in Westminster.
We also, among others, brought them questions posed by our Big Issue vendor colleagues. This, then, is the state we will be in. Read what they had to say in this week’s Big Issue.
Seven years after Grenfell no prosecutions have been brought. Residents fear they’ll die before seeing justice
“I went through the largest national tragedy in this country since the Second World War. I watched 72 people perish in front of me,” says David O’Connell, who lives in a flat in Lancaster West estate, home to Grenfell Tower.
“I have to carry on living in the area. It’s traumatic for me and my partner. On top of that, I have to pay for something that’s more expensive and doesn’t necessarily work better than what we had before. I want to be trying to get my life back together.” Seven years after the fi re, residents speak of promises of change and justice unfulfilled.
