The Big Issue is not like any other magazine or business. You start by detailing the rubrics and before too long you feel like you’re explaining gravity.
It has been built on memory, on fearlessness and vision. The Big Issue shouldn’t work. But it does.
What company would choose to deny itself half its income at point of sale? Yet, at the core, that’s why we exist. Our vendors, the men and women who use The Big Issue as their means to make a living, to work their way back into society, come through the door and pay for every single magazine they are going to sell to you. They pay £1.25, half the cover price. The difference is their income. From there, everything flows.
I am proud of this magazine and ALL our associated parts, of our buccaneering outsider spirit, our campaigning zeal, our chin-out voice for the voiceless, our move to prevention thinking as the model for government
The figures are staggering. Over 200 million magazine sales in Britain since the beginning in 1991.
Some £120 million earned by the poorest in society. We’re not a charity. We do not get government handouts. We offer the poorest a hand-up.
Certain memories are hardwired. George Michael, for instance, is a kind of shibboleth. His name a shorthand for a generosity of time and spirit, a generosity that guaranteed sales and therefore a huge boost to those making their living selling The Big Issue. George came to The Big Issue two decades ago, being honest and open. At the time, he had brought the curtain down and was speaking to nobody else. A great man, he trusted us and he supported our vendors and each return in the intervening years delivered the same lift. His premature death at Christmas was keenly felt. We will not forget.