Austerity: Staying Alive

A new report published today  – commissioned by the TUC from London Metropolitan University – exposes the impact on LGBT services of the government’s austerity measures.

Staying Alive: The Impact of Austerity Cuts on the LGBT Voluntary and Community Sector in England and Wales is the first major investigation into the impact of spending cuts on the sector, which relies on central and local government sources for around half its funding.

The research found that the direct effects of austerity include the running down of financial reserves, reductions in services and to service levels, staff cuts, casualisation of the workforce and a greater reliance on volunteers. This has led to reduced employee morale, high staff turnover, loss of expertise and difficulties finding alterative funding sources.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “LGBT services were already coping on a shoestring, receiving just 4p in every £100 of voluntary sector income. Some LGBT service providers now say they’re barely ‘staying alive’ and only a minority are optimistic that their future situation will improve.

“We are on the brink of a crisis with the financial reserves of many services running down and government plans for further rounds of austerity in danger of pushing them over the edge." ...

TUC release.

Patrick Strudwick writes about the report in today's Guardian, 'LGBT voluntary and community organisations suffer disproportionately from coalition cuts, TUC report shows'. 

Well, sort of...

The ramifications of these austerity cuts is particularly pronounced for the voluntary and charity sector given that public/statutory funding provides such a large and important proportion of overall income. Given the historical reliance of LGBT VCS bodies’ reliance on this form of funding they and their already more than averagely impacted service users are particularly vulnerable. 

Staying Alive, Section 1.4.

Strudwick doesn't ask what is being cut by certain LGBT organisations; frontline services over executive salaries?

Nor if some organisations have been overfunded; Brighton LGBT Switchboard gets £70,000 a year from the council and takes 2.5 calls a day.

Is this a good allocation of resources?

Update: A more informed and politicised comment in Pink News by Peter Purton, TUC policy officer for disability and LGBT rights.

Exacerbating the austerity impact on LGBT VCS organisations is the austerity impact on the economic well being of their service users. Austerity in Britain is hitting everyone apart from the already rich, so even LGBT people in professional positions may find themselves hit by public sector pay freezes and higher inflation. And if someone loses their job, perhaps as a result of funding cuts, they’ll struggle to survive the unprecedented scale of benefit cuts and the dismantling of social security protection under the veil of ‘welfare reform’.

Those most hit are those with the least voice at work: people with a precarious job, perhaps a zero-hours contract, agency work, self-employed or unable to find work at all. Young LGBT people without a secure income may find themselves without a roof because they’ve been thrown out of the parental home and can’t afford to rent.

It is no wonder then that a disproportionate number of young LGBT people are being treated for mental health problems...

March Against Austerity: Queer Resistance

Brighton Queers Against Cuts and Queer Resistance bloc.

Photo by Beth Granter.

PS Great. But maybe try and connect more with working-class LGBT people, so it doesn't descend into rich kids' lifestyle-ism.
More from Murray Bookchin on this "unbridgeable chasm" here.

March Against Austerity: Join Us!

Not sure anyone can actually prove "hate crime is rising", but good stuff.
The cuts are impacting on gay men's lives far more than gay marriage will (if it ever happens). 
Queer Resistance will be there, of course.

House Of Brag: House Of Tomorrow

 

House of Brag is a collective of queers and allies who have felt the lack of a cohesive non-commercial space for LGBTQI individuals. We are opening a large building in Kennington on Saturday 13th October. It will be a great opportunity for people to meet each other, organise and build momentum ahead of the TUC march on 20th October. 

The day will start with a free open breakfast and lead into a series of talks and discussions on relevant subjects: queer homelessness, the cuts, women in squatting, and a discussion on the future of queer spaces. There will also be classes and workshops on other things including yoga, self-defence and creative writing. 

In the evening we’ll be putting on some performance poetry, doing an open mic session and finishing with a gig, with a view to ending the event soon after 11pm. You can keep updated on developments more regularly on our Facebook page or our twitter account: @HouseOfBrag.

Full itinerary and stuff at House of Brag - all free, all good.
Yay! (Apart from the "performance poetry" bit).

Queer Resistance: Know Your Enemy

Queer struggle is class struggle: workers and queers, unite and fight!

After the massive popularity of the pink&black bloc at the march on 26 March 2011, we will be marching alongside hundreds of thousands of others of our class at the March Against Austerity on October 20th. We will be meeting outside the HMS President a short distance along Victoria Embankment from Blackfriars station from 11.30am, and encourage everyone to arrive by 12.30pm...

Queer Resistance.

Great.
And good to hear QR talking about class consciousness.
Please don't let such an inspirational movement be hijacked by bourgeois, god-worshipping, self-serving, attention-seeking, power-loving hypocrites and phonies.
These people - mentioning no names - are the ones we should be fighting against.
Just a thought.

Brighton Pride: Argus Special Report

"Brighton erupted in an explosion of colour yesterday for its annual Gay Pride parade, writes Jennifer Intern.
"The police as usual got into the spirit - allowing the Argus to take photos of them smiling with some of those ever-so amusing drag queens to show everyone what jolly good sports they are.
"In the above photo however, you can't see the police being spectacularly arsey to protesters.
"'Nor can you see them making loads of pointless, stupid drugs arrests all through the weekend.
"As predictably per."

Update Monday: Pink News reprint verbatim and unchallenged official statements from Sussex Police and Pride organisers - not a single word from any of the demonstrators, who'd it'd take two minutes to find and contact via the internet.

Update Monday 2: And predictably so do Gay Star News. See if you can spot any differences between their "story" and the one in Pink News. Well done!

Occupied Times: Feigning Dissent

'Dominant, institutionalised LGBT organisations would have us believe that the most important issue for LGBT people in the UK at the moment is equal marriage. But, as Louise from Queer Resistance points out, “lots of us are fighting for accommodation, medical care, there are so many more important things in the world. Equal marriage campaigns take attention away from the more important stuff.” The Coalition for Equal Marriage’s all-white campaign video, depicting a gay returning British soldier proposing to his partner, is an excellent example of how the “rights” of minority groups can be instrumentalised by, and assimilated into, mainstream narratives. Granting gay marriage is a relatively easy and inexpensive facade of progressivism, but it obscures the role of governments in creating structural economic inequalities that disproportionately affect LGBT people. Gay marriage has already been instituted by neoliberal governments in Canada and Latin America, with arguably little impact on the everyday lives of the majority of LGBT people...'

From an article, Queer Groups Organise Against The Cuts, in Occupied Times.
I agree about the great "gay marriage" charade, but...
It is just pure moronic untrue pseudo-radicalism to say; "'Dominant, institutionalised LGBT organisations would have us believe that the most important issue for LGBT people in the UK at the moment is equal marriage..."
When only Coalition For Equal Marriage do this.  
So you're dismissing everything, say, the Albert Kennedy Trust does, about teenage homelessness?
I bet they do more than you.
I love Queer Resistance - but I'd be interested to hear a reply from someone involved with QR who isn't white, middle class or able-bodied - hahahaha.
Irony!

Pride London: Going Down

Good to see some realism appearing to have descended upon organisers of Pride London who have said 25,000 people went on yesterday's march.
Will they now retract the ludicrous claim that a million people attended last year - a claim obediently repeated uncontested in many media.
Curiously Pride's website said yesterday's 25,000 was "the biggest turnout ever"?
Eh?
You'd have to go back to the mid-Eighties to find an official figure for a London Pride that small.
So was it the biggest ever, the smallest in a generation, a typo, or just the most honest estimate?

PS How Brighton Pride admitted to over-estimating attendance by perhaps as much as six times...

PPS Only three national newspapers reviewed Pride today, The Daily Mirror, The Guardian/Observer Online and The Independent On Sunday (The Mail ran the personal piece in the above post).

• Photo of "Aggressive and intolerant 'Queer Resistance' activists' from Christian Voice's hilarious Pride review; "The parade featured drag queens, people with their backsides on show, men in what we understand is ‘bondage gear’, sexually-charged costumes, the hostility of Stonewall and Queer Resistance, under-age participants and people whose tee-shirts said: ‘I’ll bet you’re thinking about sex’.
"It was an in-your-face offensive onslaught of aggression, intolerance, depravity and division designed to intimidate and assault the mind."

Occupy 12 May: Together

The annual Sunday Times Rich List yields four very important conclusions for the governance of Britain (Report, Weekend, 28 April). It shows that the richest 1,000 persons, just 0.003% of the adult population, increased their wealth over the last three years by £155bn. That is enough for themselves alone to pay off the entire current UK budget deficit and still leave them with £30bn to spare.Second, this mega-rich elite, containing many of the bankers and hedge fund and private equity operators who caused the financial crash in the first place, have not been made subject to any tax payback whatever commensurate to their gains. Some 77% of the budget deficit is being recouped by public expenditure cuts and benefit cuts, and only 23% is being repaid by tax increases. More than half of the tax increases is accounted for by the VAT rise which hits the poorest hardest. None of the tax increases is specifically aimed at the super-rich.
Third, despite the biggest slump for nearly a century, these 1,000 richest are now sitting on wealth greater even than at the height of the boom just before the crash. Their wealth now amounts to £414bn, equivalent to more than a third of Britain's entire GDP. They include 77 billionaires and 23 others, each possessing more than £750m.
The increase in wealth of this richest 1,000 has been £315bn over the last 15 years. If they were charged capital gains tax on this at the current 28% rate, it would yield £88bn, enough to pay off 70% of the entire deficit. It seems however that Osborne takes the notorious view of the New York heiress, Leonora Helmsley: "Only the little people pay taxes."
Michael Meacher MP
Labour, Oldham West and Royton

Letter to The Guardian.

‘We are all in this together’ never rang so hollow. There is no ‘together’ and they are not part of ‘we’. They want us to pay for their crisis... So we'll pay them a visit, one by one.
'On 12 May people around the world will rise up again responding to the global call for... action that marks the birth of the indignados movement.
'It’s time to face the 1 per cent. And guess what? They are right here in London....'

Message from Occupy 12 May via Queer Resistance. 

Occupy London: Evenin' All

Some police officers getting ready to do a nice bit of peaceful evicting.
I wonder why they're doing it at night.
And why they've turned the St Paul's floodlights off. 
Because the starlight's so romantic?

Update: Ronan from Queer Resistance is interviewed during the eviction for BBC World Service's The World Today and discusses what happens next for the movement. 

Update2: And then with perfect timing the next morning; "Barclays Bank has been ordered by the Treasury to pay half-a-billion pounds in tax which it had tried to avoid" BBC News.

Queer Resistance: Block The Bill

Queer Resistance will be meeting from 10.30am at St. James Park (by the corner of Birdcage Walk and Horse Guards Road) for brunch, cuddles, chats and banner making.
Then will be moving to Westminster Bridge for 1pm.
Bring scrubs, doctors and nurses uniforms and whatever else you fancy, plus food to share ;)
Twitter hashtag for the day will be #queeruncut and we will be updating Facebook. Phone number 077196 26890.

Queer Resistance on Facebook.

Sadly Fagburn can only be there in spirit, but my Uncle Noam's in town so maybe he could pop by as my proxy.

European Diversity Awards: Ever Had The Feeling You've Been Cheated?

"More than 50 demonstrators bearing placards proclaiming “The Great European Diversity Swindle” congregated outside the Savoy Hotel in the Strand to object to a corporate event marking the European Diversity Awards. Individuals nominated for awards included journalists Julie Bindel and Paul Burston. Corporate nominations included RBS, Vodafone, Lloyds and United Health Group. The nomination of Ms Bindel attracted particular fury; Bindel has previously been criticised for her controversial views about transsexual people, her article claiming Asian men habitually groom white girls for sexual abuse and her commentary on “Stickergate”, the response to the Gay-Free Zone sticker campaign in Tower Hamlets earlier this year.
"Protestors explained that the minimum £250 per head junket represented the worst excesses of corporate Britain. “These events are supposed celebrate to the work and commitment of passionate individuals, groups and businesses that have made a positive impact in improving the lives of others. That may be true of some of the nominees. However others are questionable. The presence of some, in addition to Ms Bindel; £6bn tax dodgers Vodafone, and United Health Group, would-be profiteers from the NHS sell-off, suggest an agenda of mutual self-gratification rather than social inclusion. “This is not a celebration of diversity as we would recognise it,” said organisers Natacha Kennedy, Ronan McNern and Rebecca Shaw.
"The European Diversity Awards was promoted by publishing group Square Peg Media in aid of the charity the Inclusive Foundation. Square Peg titles include G3, which has previously featured articles by Julie Bindel. Enquiries of the Charities Commission reveal that the Inclusive Foundation was founded in February 2011 by Linda Riley and Sarah Garrett, both of whom are directors of Square Peg."

Statement by Queer Resistance and others.
Fagburn is holding its first annual awards ceremony in December.
Tickets cost just £300 - Nick Griffin has agreed to host.

HIV/Aids: Joined-Up Government

"The current priority given to preventing HIV and AIDS in the UK is woefully inadequate and a new priority must be given to prevention policies if the epidemic is to be stemmed."

Report from the House of Lords HIV and Aids in the UK Select Committee.

• "Treatment costs have increased vastly and now approach £1 billion a year."

• "Spending on prevention is seriously inadequate. HIV is entirely preventable but the latest figures show that the Government spent only £2.9 million on national prevention programmes, compared with £762 million on treatment."

Cuts to London HIV prevention groups 2011-2012 budgets: 20% - £520,000* [BBC News, May]

Estimated lifetime treatment costs for one person diagnosed with HIV: £320,000 [Health Protection Agency]


Read the report 'No Vaccine, No Cure' here.

• Queer Resistance Against The Cuts

* The seeming discrepancy between this amount and the £2.9 million quoted above is because there are two separate budgets; national campaigns and local campaigns. "National" is not the total UK budget. The local London budget is the largest in the UK and was £3 million.

Morning Star: Morning Sir!

Great to see this was the Morning Star's front page today.
Lots on the TUC contingent, nowt on Queer Resistance, say, and their die-in against Tory cuts.
Mind you, at least they didn't follow the "millions marched" fantasy.

Queer Resistance: Oh Ro...

Ronan thanks everyone who marched with Queer Resistance at Pride London yesterday.
Christ, I wish I was that loudhailer...

Update: Some great photos by Marc Vallee of the Pink & Black Glitter Bloc's die-in against the cuts here.

Bradley Manning: These Guys Make Me Proud

Wow!
And Queer Resistance, too.

ATOS: Cash From Chaos

"Janet was kept waiting for nearly an hour. The doctors were running late, she was told, because of "transport problems". Finally, her name was called and she was taken through the locked security doors and into an assessment room. The doctor told her to take a seat and proceeded to work on his computer.
""I could tell he was clicking down a column of boxes. I could tell from the way he was moving the mouse." The doctor said nothing more to Janet for "at least five minutes". He then asked about her medication and also her physical health. And then – "I think it's because I said I had piles" – he launched into the most extraordinary diatribe.
"Janet was forced to sit and listen as the doctor described in graphic detail the physical damage men did to each other by having anal sex. "They're everywhere!" the doctor said. "They're running the government." He would not allow his grandchildren to be brought up in a country run by homosexuals and paedophiles.
"Janet, who is herself gay, said nothing. She found herself wondering if it was part of the test. The doctor went on to tell her that a lesbian couple had complained about him, saying that he had rejected their claim because he was homophobic. "I had to go to tribunal," he said. "I could have lost my job. But they found against them and they lost their benefits." The doctor then left the room without any explanation. Some minutes later he returned with a nurse and proceeded to examine Janet's feet..."

Clare Allan writing on Guardian Online.
This doesn't surprise me.
ATOS are the private profit-driven company hired by the government to try and scare and throw vulnerable people off benefits.
Maybe we can all get jobs doing Disabilty Assessments at ATOS Healthcare.
An interesting assessment of the ATOS crooks and creeps here.

An open letter in The Guardian signed by Mind, Centre For Mental Health etc;
"We've found that the prospect of IB reassessment is causing huge amounts of distress, and tragically there have already been cases where people have taken their own life following problems with changes to their benefits. We are hugely worried that the benefits system is heading in a direction which will put people with mental health problems under even more pressure and scrutiny, at a time when they are already being hit in other areas such as cuts to services..."

• Queer Resistance - UK Queers & Allies Against The Cuts. Next meeting at Gay's The Word on Saturday June 5th.

Queer Resistance: Emergency Operation

"We welcome the fact that the cuts have been reduced from 43% to 20%, but still question the idea of cutting HIV prevention services at a time when infections are rising. It is also a matter of concern that these cuts are happening before a comprehensive needs assessment and evaluation has been completed. Surely it would be sensible to complete this and reinvest cuts into services that have been proven effective.
“On Saturday 28th May as part of UK Uncut’s “Emergency Operation” against Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s plans for the NHS, Queer Resistance and The London Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence closed down a branch of HSBC in Covent Garden for the day and turned it into an STI clinic. We were highlighting that there are alternative ways of tackling the financial situation, rather than cutting essential public services, cuts which will affect some of the most vulnerable in our society.
“Current cuts to the NHS amount to a £20bn ‘efficiency drive’, whilst taxpayers continue to subsidise the banking sector by up to £100bn/year - equivalent to the entire NHS budget.
"This HSBC branch and at least forty other bank branches in the UK closed today as a direct result of the campaign to save the NHS...
"Through this action, Queer Resistance highlighted the 43% cut in NHS Primary Care Trust funding for HIV prevention services in London, which particularly puts gay and bisexual men’s health at risk. This is its first specific action focusing on this cut with and there will be more in the future.
"Queer Resistance demands a stop to the slashing of funding for HIV prevention services, in addition to a complete rethink of these ideological cuts which are hitting the most vulnerable in our society. There are alternatives - leave the NHS alone and cut benefits to bankers.
"Current cuts to the NHS amount to a £20bn ‘efficiency drive’ whilst taxpayers continue to subsidise the banking sector by up to £100bn/year, which is equivalent to the entire NHS budget...."

Statement by Queer Resistance.

Queer Resistance: Uncut

This Saturday, in response to the 43 per cent cut in NHS Primary Care Trust funding for HIV prevention services in London, which particularly puts gay and bisexual men’s health at risk, Queer Resistance is going to transform a bank into a "mock" sexual health clinic.
Queer Resistance is joining UK Uncut’s “Emergency Operation” against Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s plans for the NHS with a fun creative action highlighting some serious cuts affecting the LGBTQI communities.
QR invites you, whether as an individual, group or organisation to join in raising awareness of these devastating cuts, which threaten much needed services that the LGBTQI communities have fought so hard to establish, as well as other cuts that threaten LGBTQI communities and wider society.

Meeting point is Soho Square at 12 midday - look out for the Queer Resistance banner. Bring doctors and nurse uniforms, scrubs, condoms, lube, dental dams and fun toys. Be creative and have fun ;)

• More info on the cuts and full statement from Queer Resistance here.

Update: Live video here! (Intermittently). Twitter updates #queeruncut

Queer Resistance: Dawn Of The Dead

"An alternative to the Royal Wedding called the "Zombie Wedding" was to be held in London's Soho Square, billed as "a right royal orgy" with "rumpy pumpy and guillotines". However, organiser Professor Chris Knight, his partner Camilla Power and Patrick Macroidan had all been arrested at Knight's home the previous evening on charges of suspicion to cause a breach of the peace & public nuisance. All props & equipment for the Zombie Wedding were also seized, and all three held in custody..."

More here from demotix.

A statement from the wonderful Queer Resistance...

"On 29th April Queer Resistance the LGBTQI anti-cuts collective planned a Royal Zombie Wedding Celebration in Soho incorporating a picnic breakfast, performances, a zombie blessing and marriage ceremony by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence followed by a zombie flash mob through Soho.

This action, neither pro nor anti royal, was to highlight the impact of the cuts on the LGBTQI community, most notably;
* HIV care & prevention services
* Domestic violence services
* Treatment referrals for transgender people
* Hate crime prevention & victim support
* Youth homelessness prevention
* Anti-homophobic bullying work in schools
* Support to under 18s at risk of sexual exploitation
* Rape crisis services
* Disability living allowance and housing benefit
* Pride funding
The morning saw several arrests of early arrivals to the action; all were placed in cells, de-arrested and released after several hours. There was some particularly bad treatment by the police which included an alleged assault of one of the arrestees.

The group decided to persevere with the action and met in Soho Square at 12 o'clock, planning to picnic at 1pm after seeking confirmation from police that no arrests would be made for picnicing. Shortly after people had gathered at 1pm and before the performances were to take place individuals from the group spoke with police to once again confirm that no arrests would be made, the full video of this conversation is here.

Approximately half an hour after this conversation the police evicted the group from Soho Square under threat of arrest, the full video of this can be seen here.

Individuals from Queer Resistance are now in touch with legal advisers who are seeking statements from witnesses to the arrests; these should be emailed to gbclegal@riseup.net. Those arrested are also asked to get in touch with Queer Resistance as we are planning a full debrief session to give support to those affected, discuss further action and to learn as a group from what happened.

Follow Queer Resistance on Facebook.