King Charles will appear on Big Issue cover to mark 75th birthday

Now, a portrait of the King, a new portrait of the King, will appear on the front cover of next week's Big Issue magazine. King Charles, who turns 75 on the 14th of November, has also written a piece for the magazine about the cost of living and food waste matters close to his heart, of course. One of our panel this evening is Paul McNamee, editor of the Big Issue. Paul, tell us how this came about. Well, I guess there's two trains here. One is the photographer Rankin, who took the portrait earlier in October, and I should also say that our deputy editor, Stephen McKenzie, did a lot of the heavy lifting on this. He realised that Rankin had wanted to take a portrait of the King because Rankin's photographed a huge volume of people but hadn't photographed King Charles. We also knew that we had a relationship with the palace, Charles' support for Big Issue and his relationship with Big Issue is longer than mine, it goes back into the 90s, and so we talked to the palace, we realised that there was something that could happen there, we managed to set up the portrait. Striking image. It's a really great photograph, it's a great piece he's written as well, these two things that you don't normally associate with the head of the monarchy, certainly not from the Queen. So it is a great thing to have, it's a great thing for the Big Issue. Tell us about the article itself, and I have no doubt that King Charles is very, very committed to ending food waste and all the stuff that he's done at Dumfries House and elsewhere. But with respect, largely because I don't want to lose you before nine o'clock, Paul, this week I saw King Charles sitting on a golden throne wearing a hat that has the value of the GDP of a small African nation. I mean, is he the best person to be writing for the Big Issue on topics like the cost of living? Over the years, I've had the Pope on the cover of Big Issue, the Dalai Lama, we've had people who bring a lot of attention to the magazine. My priority as the editor of the Big Issue, and the Big Issue does an awful lot of different things now, it's not just the magazine, whether it's Invest or Big Issue Recruiter, we try and offer opportunity to a lot of people. But my focus with the magazine is to make sure that when it's in the hands of the vendors, they've got the best chance to earn money that people will come and take the magazine. If that is one of the most famous people in the world, one of the most well-known people in Britain, of course I'm going to put him on the cover. And we can have these conversations, we can say, well, he lives in this, you know, this gilded luxury, and what does he really know? Well, I think he probably knows a lot. We've seen his commitment to this, we've seen his son's commitment to homelessness. I think there is something there that comes from a place of honesty and proper investment. And you can shut it down if you like, but for me, I think it's a really positive thing. Am I wrong to detect, because of course the Palace doesn't do these things without being absolutely mindful of everything else that is going on at the moment. We discussed last hour, of course, Suella Bravman's comments about the homeless and indeed about the way in which they live. You read between the lines of some of what he has written in this article, and I'm not saying he's addressing it directly, it kind of feels a wee bit like it. Look, you can infer what you're going to infer. I will. We've got two things going on here. We've got the big issue looking to do what we can't in order to sell a lot of magazines. I chose this date because it's leading up to Christmas and also it coincidentally was around his birthday. We are committed to a lot of the things that he is as well around food waste and supporting people and the cost of living. That's what he has come to us to talk about. Now, if you want to see more beyond that, once the magazine is published on Monday and you can read the article only in the big issue, buy the magazine, take it home, then you can come back to me and you can ask those questions.