About this issue: Overview
Jeff Goldblum’s effortless authenticity has been the mark of a long and successful acting career. Now he’s at the height of his powers and, with roles like the Grandmaster in the new Thor movie, he’s having lots of fun. By Antonia Charlesworth
It’s unusual to find Conservative MPs on the side of welfare claimants but that’s what the planned roll-out of Universal Credit has caused. As the political battle over the welfare scheme heats up, Ciara Leeming finds stories of delayed payments, harsh sanctions, mounting debts, a growing use of foodbanks – and the indifference of the system.
In our vendor profile, Murf, from Sheffield, explains how he feels sorry for the younger generation. “Technology is a beautiful thing but automation means that there’s less jobs,” he says. “These companies that are making massive profits from technology, some of that money should be pumped out to people who have lost out in the form of a citizens’ income that everyone gets.”
We preview an exhibition at Leeds Industrial Museum called Queens of Industry, about the women chosen to represent the manufacturing trades in which they were employed – from Cotton Queen Frances Lockett from Hyde in 1930 to Northumberland Coal Queen Deborah Bramley, 1982.
On the news pages, the first opera to be sung in a northern accent.
Ali Schofield’s column, meanwhile, is a righteous condemnation of the way the fight against breast cancer has been sexualised – and she should know.
Plus astronaut Tim Peake’s letter to his younger self, crossword, Sudoku and much more.