The vendor event at Parliament last week was significant.
In his first act as a peer, The Big Issue chief John Bird held a reception as a thank you for the people who have helped him and The Big Issue. He details it in his column in this week’s magazine.
It was a fantastic assembly. There were supporters from the early days of The Big Issue. There were former vendors who had moved on and built some incredible careers. Key to it all were our current vendors. They were invited into the seat of government, to the Mother of All Parliaments, to take their place. The tea, said writer and vendor André Rostant, tasted a lot better in bone china by the side of the Thames.
It was a wonderfully Big Issue thing to do, a reflection of the organisation and of John Bird. It said, we’re here, we have a right to be here and we’re going to have you sit up and take notice.
There is a timeliness and focus to it.
Elsewhere, the national dialogue noisily rattles with one form of cultural determinism or another. The Brexit debate, the Scottish elections campaign that has the air of an SNP victory lap, even the Queen’s birthday celebrations are all couched in language of how where you’re from informs how you should act. This is fair enough to a degree – we are ALL products of time and place.
