Boris has decided to cut £10,000 from from the budget of the Soho Pride festival, and will instead use the money to fund scholastic education against homophobia. The decision, according to the organisers of the event, “could prove fatal and mean 2008 could be Soho Pride’s last year on the streets of London“.
HOMOVISION writes that the loss of the festival “would have a significant impact on the London gay community” and argues that the decision “shows a lack of understanding of the London gay community“, although Pink News links to a Stonewall report that shows how badly needed education measures are.
You can donate to the festival here.
A hat tip to Simon McDermott in the commentsUpdate: Simon also kindly points us to this video, in which the organiser of Soho Pride discusses the funding cut. In not returning calls and then cutting the funding just before the event, the Mayor (or his office) certainly acted shoddily.
If you attend and enjoy Soho Pride then we do encourage you to donate.
Tags: festivals · funds10 Comments
10 responses so far ↓
It’s more than the Soho Pride, it seems - rather a lot of festivals are seeing cuts, if Sunny is right (http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2228)
He has indeed said that rather tentatively that he wants to ‘put on some festivals’ if ‘he can sponsor them with private cash rather than public funds’, but I think people should see a few more signs of the falling axe before they announce the end of all joy in London.
That doesn’t mean that I’d be surprised if he began to jettison festival funding left, right and centre, however.
So business will sponsor community events. Just what criteria will be used to determine what events business can sponsor and how closely will they resemble the events we have now?
On a related note, isn’t it a bit unwise to do things this way round? Couldn’t Bojo have got the sponsorship in place for next year then remove funding? Wouldn’t that have been a cleverer way of not igniting a community driven backlash?
Well, once the Standard had quoted him Boris lost interest in festival funding rather hastily*, so we shall have to see evidence before we accept that it’s policy. The Soho Pride withdrawl - and the Capital Woman dithering - suggests that he’s limiting such funding, and then, in at least this case, reshuffling it. Budget shavings have been hinted at quite a lot recently.
He may have initiated policy, but unless I see tangible evidence - or at least hand-waving hints, such as with Capital Woman - of it I won’t report. The Boy Who Cried Wolf and all those dull little fables…
* http://ken.bluestatedigital.com/media/johnson_threatens_withdrawal_of_funding_from_londons_community_festivals?text=2
I’m as anti-Boris as most people here I’d imagine, but reluctantly (and as a gay man) I’d have to agree with him - there is a big overlap between soho and london prides, only taking place just over a month apart, in the same area, and catering to the same people. Education in schools to combat homophobic bullying is sorely needed, far more than a subsidy to a soho boozeathon. So if he genuinely is diverting the money in that direction then I think it’s entirely sensible and to be applauded (much as that sticks in my throat).
To be honest, Geoff’s worth listening to here - for one thing Boris isn’t likely to do anything flagrantly homophobic with quite that many gay men in his close entourage, gay being the ‘acceptable’ minority to be in. I know being a gay Tory doesn’t automatically mean you support gay rights, but these are *out* gay Tories, not the traditional married-for-the-political-career unhappy bastards of old, voting for Clause 28 then slipping off to do penance in the local convenience. I note this tradition is alive and well in the boroughs, though:
http://tinyurl.com/5jurlx (possibly slightly NSFW)
Stonewall is running a campaign against homophobic bullying in schools at the moment, in fact, including ads on the Tube. I’d trust what they said about any putative transfer of funds - remember it’s actually got to *happen* for it to count, and a bit more than a measly ten grand would be good.
Yes, although I have sympathy with the attendees (cutting the funds days before the event doesn’t show a great deal of thought) I don’t really disagree. There had already been warnings of penny-pinching to pay for the anti-crime programmes, and it is at least good that they won’t be solely directed towards knives, however paltry £10,000 is.
Here’s the response from the Soho Pride organisers:
http://www.homovision.tv/soho-pride-2008/
Cheers, Simon.