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Making London The No1 GLBT City! | gayagenda.com

London – The number 1 LGBT city!

In London the mayoral hopeful Ken Livingstone has promised to appoint a special GLBT advisory board if he’s elected in his 2012 bid for the role of Mayor. He also promises to hold an annual Pride reception, and re-enter the Greater London Authority into Stonewall’s annual diversity index.

Ken held the elected mayoral position from 2000 to 2008 and said this week he wanted to “bring people together rather than focusing on what is different”. He was also at the head of London Pride march this year and supports for marriage equality for gay people.

Mr Livingstone criticized the current mayor, conservative bumbling Boris Johnson for “downgrading” work to tackle inequality, abolishing the GLBT advisory board Livingstone set up last time in the position. He also slated Johnson for pulling the GLA out of the Stonewall index and cancelling the annual pride reception.

Mr Livingstone said: “I am proud that London is one of the great LGBT capitals of the world. We need to continually work to promote equality and tackle discrimination. Boris Johnson has downgraded important parts of work to tackle inequality, removed London government from the Stonewall equality index and abolished an annual Pride event at City Hall, whilst his friends in Whitehall are weakening the Equality Act which threatens the provision of equal services and employment for lesbian and gay Londoners. Today I am setting out new proposals to make London the number-one LGBT city in the world and which are a clear alternative to the weakening of equalities measures we are already seeing from the government

To many it came as a shock when Livingstone lost the last mayoral elections leaving Johnson victorious, however the sing of the vote was seen by political commentators at the time as a protest to the then Labour government. Yet, now with infighting in the coalition government of the day, and the UK facing the biggest cuts in public spending within living memory, things could be about to reverse themselves.