Bread for All explores and challenges our assumptions about what the welfare state was originally for, and the kinds of people who were involved in creating it. In doing so, it asks what the idea continues to mean for us today
“Witty, wise and constantly surprising, the second novel in Ali Smith’s seasonal state-of-the-nation quartet resists the temptations of agitprop and invective to paint a delicate, historically nuanced portrait of Britain in the age of Brexit. A much-needed reminder that resolution, in life as in art, can only really come when each side learns to see something of itself in the other.” – Lorien Kite
In the second novel in her Seasonal cycle, Smith’s shape-shifting quartet of novels casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter.
“Testosterone Rex is one of those rare books that manages to effortlessly mix science, social commentary and a call to arms. It is witty, robust and angry but provides a new take – and new evidence – that helps us answer the age old question of where women stand in the world.” – Kit de Waal
A book explaining why past and present sex roles are only serving suggestions for the future. It reveals a much more dynamic situation through an entertaining and well-documented exploration of the latest research that draws on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy.
“The depth to which Wills has researched and animated the lives of Britain’s immigrant communities following the Second World War is astonishing, taking us far beyond the headlines and into the ports, dance-halls and workplaces through which they passed.” – Alex Clark
Clair Wills’ book brings to life the incredible diversity and strangeness of the migrant experience. She introduces us to lovers, scroungers, dancers, homeowners, teachers, drinkers, carers and many more to show the opportunities and excitement as much as the humiliation and poverty that could be part of the new arrivals’ experience.
Combining the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling, Evans has produced a compelling view into the life of asylum seekers living in Calais’s ‘Jungle’
A book on racial inequalities, exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race.
‘The nature and future of Islam is one of the biggest questions of our age. There are many who doubt whether the words ‘Islam’ and ‘Enlightenment’ should even be in the same sentence, let alone next to each other. Christopher de Ballaigue demonstrates a solid enlightenment tradition which remains vibrant today, and his book is compelling and urgent.” – Andrew Adonis
An absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
“An exposition of how the political elites have failed their societies. This investigation into the new global politics reveals how the Somewhere backlash is a democratic response to the dominance of Anywhere interests, in everything from mass higher education to mass immigration.”
Channel 4 News aimed to highlight the reality of rough sleeping, by telling the story of one person who died on the streets of the UK. Andy Davies and his producer and cameraman pieced together the story of Lindy Pring, after seeing a brief mention in a student online newspaper of a woman’s death in a park in Cardiff. They found out her name, tracked down her partner who was living in a tent with her, and eventually persuaded her sister to describe Lindy’s path to homelessness. Through Lindy’s story, the TV and online work both personalises rough sleeping and sheds a light on the reality of life – and death – on the streets of a British city.
Social media content
Since the EU referendum, a stream of news reports revealed a spike in hate crimes, but what they did not describe was the far-reaching effects on the individual, nor the response from agencies. What I did, therefore, was tell the inside story of a hate crime over six months: one gay man, one incident. By exploring with him the psychological, physical, legal and financial aftermath, I was able to convey the meaning of hate crimes and the inadequate provision for victims. Although in this instance one policy worked – a harsher sentence because it was a hate crime – by detailing how the victim’s life crumbled leaving him homeless and penniless, the complex picture of what is lacking in policies and provisions, came into view. Half a million people either read the piece or watched the video. Many emailed saying only now do they fully understood what a hate crime really is.
The material submitted consists of work investigating the causes and impact of the housing crisis, which followed my work on Big Capital: Who is London for?, my book on the housing crisis. The journalistic submissions include a ‘Long Read’ extract from Big Capital in the Guardian and two pieces for the Guardian on the causes and wider implications of the Grenfell fire. Also included is a podcast from an event at the London Review Bookshop and a video of a public debate on the housing crisis at the London School of Economics.
Video content
What is housing for? LSE public lecture
Audio content
Anna Minton in conversation with Oliver Wainwright, London Review Bookshop
There are 670,000 children in England living in families regarded as high risk whose privations are mostly invisible to the authorities. My special investigation – The Lost Childhoods – surfaces this otherwise unseen report by the Children’s Commissioner and depicts the tough lives of some of these forgotten children, such as child carers and children living in secret domestic abuse safe houses. My series generated a special debate in the House of Lords as well as a vociferous response from readers who also set up crowdfunding pages for several of the children featured.
Social media & audience response
The New Arrivals project sought to understand the lives of the large numbers of refugees and migrants trying to build new lives in the UK. The project investigated the string of injustices facing newcomers to Britain, from the kafkaesque asylum process, the boredom and stress of limbo, the nature of life on £37 a week, and the inevitable connections between refugees and homelessness.
It has already unearthed several scoops: the scandal of clustering asylum seekers in poor towns, the travesty of the Home Office interview process, the failure to prepare properly for Syrian children arriving, and – the saddest revelation of all: children forced into homelessness by bureaucracy.
Video content
Social media content
With these documentaries on child poverty and cannabis, Professor Green, has confirmed himself as a unique voice to bring a broad and younger audience to the social issues of today. In Britain today, 1 in 4 children are growing up in poverty. These figures are set to rise. Professor Green has done well, but he grew up in a home with a lot of stress around money. In this immersive film, he sets out to uncover what life’s like for young people on the breadline and finds the hidden consequence is mental health. He spends time with 10-year-old Kelly-Louise and 14-year-old Tyler. Her family have been evicted, can’t afford a deposit on a new home and facing homelessness, her life is turned upside down. The impact of poverty and cramped emergency accommodation or Tyler are palpable.
Producer Director Joe Plomin’s films reveal the mistreatment of the most vulnerable people in society. His careful use of secret filming repeatedly delivers indisputable evidence of real, current ‘evils’. Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets exposed abuse and even assaults at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, widespread self-harm and people detained for months or even years as they await deportation. One boy was forced to test a batch of drugs by his cell mate. Since broadcast select committee hearings have begun in Parliament, the Home Office is investigating the company running the centre and its director has resigned. A criminal investigation is under way. Behind Bars, Prison Undercover helped reveal the truth about the crisis in Britain’s prisons, which prompted the Government to invest more.
Online content
Children with rickets, parents fainting with hunger in the playground, schools with laundries to wash children’s clothes; in 2 special reports Dan Hewitt and Mat Heywood uncovered the shocking reality of child poverty in Britain, exposing the failings of the benefit system and finding families trapped in low paid, insecure work. The project aired on ITV Granada and ITV National News. It was viewed over 7 million times on social media with coverage in The Guardian, The Mail and The Mirror. Jeremy Corbyn praised the reports online. The focus was in-work poverty and the impact on children living in struggling households. They found breakfast clubs where pupils cannot afford 10p toast and cereal, where teachers give their own coats and shoes to parents, and GPs treating children with malnutrition. Dan and Mat spent several weeks with 2 working parents and also their children, who themselves gave them a rare insight how they felt growing up in poverty, a testament to the trust they’d built.
Social media content & audience response
“On the Edge was a piece of vivid, hard-hitting journalism, combining people’s experiences, data and analytic insight to show how so many people are being locked out and left behind by the way our economy works.” – Campbell Robb
“A brilliant combination of ice cold analysis, real human interest, great use and presentation of data and limpid writing – all of which takes the problems of one seaside town and sets them in a far wider context.” – Nick Timmins
Video content
The Macpherson report 19 years ago and its assessment of “institutional racism” within policing is regarded as a defining moment in British race relations. The consensus now is that things have much improved; that fatal violence towards the black community is a US not UK issue. Over the summer, a cluster of young black men died following police contact. The official accounts were vague, but oddly similar. By painstakingly tracking down witnesses – many of whom were not interviewed by the watchdog – these official versions were contradicted and exposed. Together, they suggested a cover up. Lawyers warned us not to run the findings or footage because they might prejudice official inquiries. They were ignored in the public interest. Days after publication the IPCC recommended suspending officers; one force internally admitted failings. A month later, as a direct result of the article, another five Met officers were placed under investigation. Within three months the IPCC was shut down.
Video content