London Pride Reception

Last night I attended the Mayor of London Gay Pride reception at City Hall, It is a reception I have attended for the past 5 years. The first couple of years I was working at the reception as I was still working at City Hall, but the last few years I have been invited as a guest. Of course this year was the first reception with Boris Johnson as Mayor.

Here is a picture of him and Ben Somerskill of Stonewall (Ben is the one speaking next to the sign language interpreter.)

I suppose Boris' speech wasn't a surprise, he started by saying he hoped he didn't make any mistakes during the speech! The biggest cheer was when he mentioned his predecessor Ken Livingstone. He announced that he was going to get the Police to seriously tackle homophobic hate crime which is good. Boris also spoke about the achieved vision of a "Carnival London" this is something good for London apparently. A carnival, hmmmm? A multi coloured, all singing, all dancing, all performing show of a city with no real substance if you scratch the surface you discover a rather sinister collection of rogues running the carnival. That's what the phrase carnival London makes me think of, and actually I can see that fits perfectly for a Boris Johnson lead London!

The reception its self was well run and the food was inspired - fish and chips and ice cream! Perfect for the evening of the hottest day so far this year! There did seem to be less people at the reception this year. I did discover some good news which was that the Liberty Festival will be going ahead this year! Liberty is the disability arts festival which I organised back in 2003 for European Year of Disabled People. The festival was so successful it became an annual event and this will be the 6th Liberty!

Revelers at City Hall, with rainbow banner and Tower Bridge