David Cameron: Pinkwashing

David Cameron’s legacy as he leaves 10 Downing Street after six years at the pinnacle of government is now officially up for debate. To his allies, Cameron has been the bedrock of economic recovery, many of them repeatedly citing economic growth and increased employment as his greatest bequests to the nation. But what of the man himself? While bidding farewell to his parliamentary colleagues at Prime Minister’s Questions earlier today, Cameron referred to the introduction of marriage equality as one of his proudest achievements since 2010.

Let’s be clear: the legal right to marry your same-sex partner should be celebrated. However, to suggest that it positions Cameron as chief champion of LGBT equality is no more realistic than the assertion that ‘marriage equality’ means that the battle for LGBT equality is won.

Austerity, the economic model underpinning Cameron’s tenure, has had a devastating impact on LGBT services. A TUC-funded research report by London Metropolitan University in 2014 found that the LGBT Voluntary and Community Sector is struggling to cope under the pressure of extensive public spending cuts. The tangible impact of this has been massive reductions in budgets, staffing and, consequently, services offered. This comes at a time when demand for support among key groups, not least bisexual, trans, BME and disabled LGBT people continues to rise exponentially...

Independent Voices.

Lost count of how many times Dave and Theresa namedropped equal marriage yesterday.

Noam Chomsky: Austerity Is Class War

Democracy Now interview.

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...

Putting Tories On The Dole: Slumming It

Fagburn doesn't usually approve of e-petitions, mainly as they often serve little purpose beyond making someone feel good about themselves for ten seconds.
But I did sign the one asking Ian Duncan Smith to prove his claim he can live on £53 a week for a year.
Mainly as it's clearly making the hopelessly out-of-touch millionaire upper class-warrior squirm.
But lest we forget, back in 1984 another then Tory MP took up this challenge - our old chum comedy posh gay, Matthew Parris.
In a wonderful display of not-really-getting-the-point-ness, Parris lived for exactly one week (!) on £26.80 - which wasn't a lot of money in those days.
Undaunted by the laughter and contempt this patronising exercise incurred, he repeated it in 2004.
Sadly neither programme is on YouTube*, but here's a cracking demolition job of the last one by Gareth McLean in The Guardian, drawing comparisons with the equally patronising 2003 doc, When Michael Portillo Became A Single Mum.

Politicians may volunteer for such swaps imagining their credibility rising, but they rarely contemplate how idiotic they may appear. (This at least gives them something in common with other stars of reality TV.)
All of which is perhaps well and good. The use of personalities, such as Parris and Portillo, may draw to a film about poverty viewers who wouldn't otherwise watch. After all, poverty is ugly and nasty: not what anyone would call preferred viewing. But there is also a danger - in the sparks of worlds colliding, in the bright lights of personality-led current affairs - that the bigger issue gets lost. Everything is reduced to spectacle (see refined Parris in a nasty fitted kitchen!) and the wider context ignored.
In contrast to an authored report on poverty, say, there is scant analysis, but a claim to greater authenticity. It is, of course, a spurious claim: reality TV is a misnomer, an oxymoron. Matthew Parris negotiating life on a £55 budget becomes a variation on the tasks undertaken in the Big Brother house, slumming it in Newcastle akin to surviving in the I'm A Celebrity jungle. It's poverty as entertainment and very little else.

* The latter one, For The Benefit Of Mr Parris Revisited, appears to be on some of those sites where you have to sign away your life first and may just be phishing, so these are AYOR.

PS More recently we had "disgraced" Lib Dem Mark Oaten - gasp! - living on a Tower Hamlets council estate for a bit in Tower Block Of Commons - truly a documentary too disgusting to be described on a family blog.

Update: Matthew Parris writes in The Times his programme was a pointless exercise ("and this is the killer-objection to trying a life on benefits for a week — one week ain’t the half of it..."), and - oops! - faked; he and the camera crew actually left before the week was out.