A donation bin appears in the supermarket for families who can't afford soap or toothpaste. Terms such as "bed poverty" emerge in the news because we now need vocabulary to describe children who are so poor that they have to sleep on the floor. Then one day you read a statistic that somehow feels both shocking and wearily unsurprising: about 3.8 million people experienced destitution in the UK last year. That's being unable to meet their most basic needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed.
The research-released last week by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) - lays out the scale of destitution and how potently it has spread. The number of people experiencing destitution in the UK has more than doubled in the last five years - up from 1.55 million in 2017. One million children are living in destitute homes - a staggering increase of 186% in half a decade. The research, part of a project that has been monitoring the scale of destitution since 2015, found almost two-thirds of adults who are in severe poverty have a disability or long-term health condition; cancer patients going to chemotherapy and coming home to wear a coat in their freezing homes.
Denne historien er fra November 03, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra November 03, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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The Saudi football World Cup is an act of violence and disdain
Well, that's that then. In the event there were only two notes of jeopardy around Fifa's extraordinary virtual congress last week to announce the winning mono-bids, the vote without a vote, for the right to host the 2030 and 2034 football World Cups.
AI has made the move into video and it's worryingly plausible
I recently had the opportunity to see a demo of Sora, OpenAI's video generation tool, which was released in the US last Monday, and it was so impressive it made me worried for the future.
With tyrant Assad ousted, Syrians deserve support and hope
Last week, time collapsed. Bashar al-Assad's fall recalled scenes across the region from the start of the Arab spring almost 14 years ago. Suddenly history felt vivid, its memories sharpened. In fact it no longer felt like history.
TV
The Guardian Weekly team reveals our small-screen picks of the year, from the underground vaults of post-apocalyptic Fallout to the mile-high escapism of Rivals
Albums
Murky love stories, nostalgic pop and an in-your-face masterpiece captured our critics' ears in 2024
Film
Visual language, sound, light and rhythm are to the fore in the best movies of the year
Hidden delights Our 24 travel finds of 2024
Guardian travel writers share their discoveries of the year, from Læsø to Lazio
'It's really a disaster' The fight to save lives as gang war consumes capital
Dr James Gana stepped out on to the balcony of his hospital overlooking a city under siege. \"There's a sensation of 'What's next?'. Desperation is definitely present,\" the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medic said, as he stared down at one of scores of camps for displaced Haitians in their country's violence-plagued capital.
Trailblazers The inspiring people we met around the world this year
From an exuberant mountaineer to a woman defiantly facing the guns of war, here are some of the brave individuals who gave us hope in a tumultuous 2024
Votes of confidence
From India to Venezuela and Senegal to the US, more people voted this year than ever before, with over 80 elections across the world. With rising authoritarianism and citizen-led resistance revealing its vulnerabilities and resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges, has democracy reached its breaking or turning point?
