Kane reaction: how a chocolate-like harry kane statue brought council spending and tax hikes into sharp focus

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If you read The Big Issue, you get it all: stories about council waste, a glimpse into the world of public art, and exclusives on the nation’s biggest figures. Rarely, though, do you get all this in the same article. Until now.

We broke the story which got everyone talking, revealing the first pictures of a secret statue of England captain Harry Kane.

It began as a story about local authority profligacy. Commissioned in 2019 at a cost of £7,200, the statue had been hidden away in storage ever since. Residents of Waltham Forest, northeast London wondered what it could look like.

And with councils going bust across the UK, people facing council tax hikes and services being cut to the bone, it was only natural that many wondered how the money could have been spent elsewhere. After all, poverty runs deep: 4.3 million children in the UK are now living in poverty. Forty-six per cent of people in the UK have £1,000 or less in savings.

So readers wondered: “Think how better this could have been spent – food banks, warm shelter for homeless people?” Also: “Councils can make statues but can’t collect people’s bins regularly enough?”