Evening Standard comment: Pride in London: we’ve come far but it’s not over

There’s a lot to be proud of in holding a great party, which is what will happen in our city tomorrow . Pride in London 2019 will big, bold and full of colour: a joyful event in a nation in which LGBTQ+ rights are moving from being a cause to a settled part of life. Politicians fall over themselves to say they support them. Big companies want to be involved. Soldiers, spies and police officers will be marching in sequins. You’d almost forget that for many people still alive, the Britain they grew up in wasn’t like this, and that for the majority of LGBTQ+ people around the world it still isn’t.

That small word “pride” matters so much: it is pride in something which people were once told they should be ashamed of, pride in the courage of those who fought battles against oppression and for equality. This year is the 50th anniversary of the night that people at a gay bar in New York called the Stonewall Inn grew tired of raids and abuse by the police and took to the streets to fight back and, eventually, win. From there to today was a long journey, and the victory wasn’t just to change what the law said — the first steps towards decriminalisation came in Britain two years before Stonewall — but to change the way people think. That’s harder, and to make tolerance real and lasting it matters even more.

Most people in this country used to believe homosexuality was something to repress. Now most people think it is normal. That wonderful change did not come about by accident. It was the result of courage, campaigning and honesty of the sort that still powers Pride: the sort that has created a better Britain — one in which the man most likely to be our next prime minister now speaks out about his support for tolerance and the importance of teaching equality in schools, and would never again, as he once did, write flippantly about “tank-topped bum boys”.

We need to keep our pride in this change, and keep our pride in changes to come, too. Transgender issues are being discussed now in Britain as they were not even two years ago. There are still many young people in our schools who do not feel able to talk about who they are, who suffer bullying, who come from families that do not tolerate diversity. This cause can be won, just as it can be won around the world: in Botswana, for instance, where last month the courts ruled against laws criminalising gay sex. London is right to be proud of its leading place in such tolerance and diversity. This weekend the capital will have fun. But the cause Pride stands for is still a live one, and as we party we should remember this.

Death on the roads

One of the Mayor’s laudable aspirations is “vision zero” — the aim to eradicate deaths on London’s roads. Alas, after eight deaths in the past five days, that target is, as Transport for London admits, far from being realised. One of the victims was a young woman cyclist killed in Battersea, the third cycling death this year. It’s a reminder of the continuing vulnerability of cyclists but things are improving — there were five fatalities by this time last year.

What is now worrying TfL is that five of the eight most recent deaths were of motorcyclists. Eradicating deaths of scooter and motorcycle users will be a matter of consciousness-raising and law enforcement, just as with cyclists. Road deaths are avoidable but we’ve got a long way to go to get to zero.

Sir Mo’s school run

At School sports days across London, adults will be showing off in front of the children by becoming fiercely competitive in the parents’ race. But few have quite as much to brag about as the dad who took on Mo Farah on their sports day — and won. The father can dine out on the win for life. And Sir Mo can reflect that he can, sometimes, bring almost as much happiness to people by losing as by winning.