The Pig Issue

They’re as intelligent as three-year-olds and make great pets. It was pigs who led the revolution in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which turns 80 this month. But today, UK pig farming is in trouble. Drive through the countryside and you’re unlikely to see family-run smallholdings home to a variety of animals as described by Orwell. Such farms have mostly been swallowed by larger, commercial operations; there are around 100,000 fewer farms in the UK today than there were in 1943, when Orwell was writing the book. And some farmers, it turns out, are more equal than others.

Also inside

• Who and what is really behind the protests taking place at asylum hotels?
• Stanely Donwood takes us behind the 30-year creative partnership he’s had with Thom Yorke
• Leona Lewis looks back on being propelled to fame by The X Factor in a Letter To My Younger Self
• As the rise of the far right threatens to undo the good work done by Russell T Davies, he’s coming out fighting
• Star of new Alien TV series Alex Lawther tells us the real threat is AI
• And Leeds vendor Martin has rediscovered his inner cheeky chappy since starting to sell the magazine

Plus much more!

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