Inside The Big Issue: The legendary Christmas special

It’s our legendary Christmas special! As tough as times are for many, as much as people seem to try and widen the divisions between us, at Big Issue we at least know there is a positive side. At this time of year, more vendors join us so they can earn money to get them through a cold, dark winter – and more people join us to support them and to support the work we do.

So you are in for a festive treat as this special bumper Christmas edition is packed with famous faces and vital investigations that shining a light on those in need but also the solutions that can make many lives better into 2024.

We visit a hostel to find out how there’s still hope at Christmas, meet people receiving a warm welcome at the growing number of ‘warm banks’ across the country. We find out the support available for those missing loved ones.

We’re also joined by a sleigh-load of famous faces. From Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf to the persistent and reliable Rick Astley; cultural highlights of the year from Danny Dyer, Ncuti Gatwa, Dominic West and more. We bring you the best of our Letter to My Younger Self interviews with Sophie L Morgan, Beverley Knight, Noel Gallagher, and back for Christmas, Michael Bublé.

There’s a Christmas quiz to test the family while digesting mince pies, our pick of the best books of the year and Christmas messages from our vendors.

They would like to thank you for your continued support. And all of us at Big Issue wish you a merry Christmas. Our next edition comes out just after the big day so we’ll save wishing you a happy new year until then!

Find your local Big Issue vendor here.

What else is in this week’s Big Issue?

Lord Dubs’s Christmas message

Lord Dubs, the Labour peer, former MP for Battersea and refugee campaigner, was welcomed to the UK after fleeing the Nazis. This year marks the 85th anniversary of the last train of the Kindertransport rescue effort that brought 10,000 mostly Jewish refugee children to safety in the UK. Dubs was one of the youngest, just six years old when he waved his mother off from Prague.

He writes that government hostility towards todays refugees is unconscionable. “The government’s hostility towards refugees is indicative of its hostility towards vulnerable people more broadly,” Lord Dubs says. “Refugees in Calais are not living in those filthy tents out of a lifestyle choice any more than the street home- less in the UK are. Refugees are not, as our former home secretary would have it, ‘invaders’. They deserve compassion. Even more importantly, like all of us, they deserve hope.”

Read the full message in this week’s Big Issue.

The Big Issue meets Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf

Humza Yousaf is one of Britain’s most pivotal politicians. As First Minister of Scotland, how he leads in the coming months will have a very real impact on the independence issue. And that has ramifications beyond the future of the union with England and the make-up of Britain, to a potential acceleration of other global secession movements.

In this week’s issue, he meets Big Issue editor Paul McNamee. We find out what has surprised him about being first minister, what he will do to fight homelessness, what his relationship’s like with Rishi Sunak and more…

The Big Issue Christmas quiz

It’s been a big year for our resident trivia buff and Big Issue production journalist Alan Woodhouse. He triumphed on BBC One’s Pointless (just don’t mention Ed Sheeran) and now he brings you his fiendishly difficult Christmas quiz.

There’s a round of who said it, Braverman or Trump? There are AI-generated images of hit films and songs for you to guess, and lots of general knowledge, like what’s the name of Marge’s sisters in The Simpsons and what is Latin for eagle?

Get the questions (and all the answers) in the latest issue of The Big Issue.