| "I am going to stick up for the rights of the LGBT community and when I'm Chairman of the MPA - which I will be from October - I am going to make it a personal mission of mine to crack down ruthlessly on homophobic hate crime."
- Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
London Gay Pride 2008
Strong words from Boris Johnson back in June 2008, but as Chairman of the MPA (Metropolitan Police Authority), did he deliver?
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Well the simple answer is "not as much as he says he does".
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| All figures from the Metropolitan Police |
The most recent figures at the time of this speech suggested that between June 2007 and June 2008, 989 homophobic hate crimes were reported in the city of London. One year after Boris Johnson's speech, PinkNews.co.uk reported that between June 2008 and June 2009, 1,200 incidents were reported. That's an increase of 13.5% from the time of this speech through to the next study just one year later.
What's more, between September 2008 and September 2009, 1,192 homophobic offenses were recorded by the police - a rise of 18.3% on the previous year.
A total of 1,362 anti-gay hate crimes were reported in London in 2010. And from February 2011 to February 2012, the Metropolitan Police reported a reduction of 10% in reported homophobic hate crimes, bringing the number down slightly to 1,337 over that 12 month period.
Ian Baynham (pictured right), 62-year-old civil servant, was brutally murdered in London's famous Trafalgar Square on September 25th, 2009, little over a year after Mayor Boris Johnson's promise to "crack down ruthlessly on homophobic hate crime" in the city. He was just one amongst many other gay people to have been fatally injured as a result of a homophobic hate crime in London over the last five years.
Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham were all voted in amongst the top 10 worst places to live in London with Tower Hamlets being the worst place to be gay. Extremists declared the area a "gay free zone" in February 2011 and sent death threats to gays living in the community and attacked them in the streets.
So has Boris done what he said he'd set out to so "ruthlessly" do? I think it's evident from the figures that not a lot has been done. Despite the decrease in homophobic hate crimes in the last 12 months, I don't think it's enough to give the Mayor any decent argument seeing as when he made this speech the figures stood at 989 reported cases and today we're at 1,337. That's still more. The question can also be asked as to whether or not more people are actually coming forward and reporting hate crimes. The real number may not have increased - it may have even decreased -, we can never know. A lot of LGBT people don't report hate crimes and a change in this pattern could be a contributing factor to the rise in reported crimes in these latest figures.
Now, I'm not saying Ken Livingstone is a better candidate. I really like Boris Johnson and how he has dealt with other issues during his time as Mayor, like the London riots. The famous "where's your broom?" episode particularly touched me. However, something else voters should bare in mind: he doesn't really seem to have his own opinions when it comes to gay marriage...
So has Boris done what he said he'd set out to so "ruthlessly" do? I think it's evident from the figures that not a lot has been done. Despite the decrease in homophobic hate crimes in the last 12 months, I don't think it's enough to give the Mayor any decent argument seeing as when he made this speech the figures stood at 989 reported cases and today we're at 1,337. That's still more. The question can also be asked as to whether or not more people are actually coming forward and reporting hate crimes. The real number may not have increased - it may have even decreased -, we can never know. A lot of LGBT people don't report hate crimes and a change in this pattern could be a contributing factor to the rise in reported crimes in these latest figures.
Now, I'm not saying Ken Livingstone is a better candidate. I really like Boris Johnson and how he has dealt with other issues during his time as Mayor, like the London riots. The famous "where's your broom?" episode particularly touched me. However, something else voters should bare in mind: he doesn't really seem to have his own opinions when it comes to gay marriage...
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