"Let's Get Tested" Video Competition

The deadline for entries is 31st March!

Film Awards Season

- "Hunger" by Steve McQueen won the "Novello" award for best first film at the Baftas. Previously, the film had won the Camera d'Or at Cannes, and the Discovery Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. It's about Bobby Sands and the 1981 hunger strike in Belfast's Maze Prison.

- We had a joint social with the Uni of Warwick Young Greens last week, and we went to see "Milk" at the Warwick Arts Centre. I've been to San Francisco twice (1995 and 1997), and it was nice to see a recreation of the 1970's Castro. Sean Penn really disappeared into the lead role, and Emile Hirsch was rather good as Cleve Jones. "I faked a lung disease to get out of P.E. So what? What are you, some kind of street shrink?" "Sometimes." Ben Summerskill, the chief exec of Stonewall, gave a film review in the Guardian. It's up for best actor, best director, best picture, and best supporting actor (Josh Brolin, as Dan White, the fellow city councillor who kills Milk and the mayor) at the Oscars. Click here for a view that says the film sanitises his life.

- It's always interesting to see which films get nominated for best documentary short and feature at the Oscars. The topics this year: MLK's assasination, 14-acre community gardens in Los Angeles, the aftermath of Katrina, and the photographing of people on their way to Khmer Rouge death camps.

"Milk" - Warwick Arts Centre - 6th Feb to 12th Feb

World AIDS Day - 1st December

I didn't want there to be a 20th anniversary of World Aids Day.

73 000 adults have HIV in the UK. 5000 more contract HIV each year, with Coventry having a higher rate than the rest of the West Midlands.

HIV prevention is straight-forward. If you're at risk of HIV transmission through drug use, there are a number of needle exchange projects near to Coventry. In straight or gay sex, men need to wear condoms. Women need more self-respect and confidence, so they can ask a male partner (whether for the night, or longer-term) to wear a condom. We need to value and protect ourselves.

If you need help and advice, you can phone THT Direct on 0845 1221 200 between 10am and 10pm on Monday to Friday, and from 12 noon to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday. Emails can be sent to info@tht.org.uk

Leadership Of The Scottish Greens

If you want to read about the leadership of the Scottish Greens (their new "co-convenor"), the Times had a profile of Patrick Harvie yesterday. He's the first openly bisexual party leader in British politics.

Universal HIV Testing

This is an amazing idea. As Michael Franti once sang, it's better to know than to not know:

All 15-59 year olds in some areas of England should be offered a HIV test by their GP, new recommendations say. In 42 trusts with more than two HIV cases for every 1,000 people, everyone should be offered the test when they join a GP surgery, experts said. Around 20% of the population would fall under the universal testing policy. Most of the high-prevalence areas are in London, but others include Brighton, Manchester, Blackpool and Birmingham.

See also: HIV testing in Coventry (THT)

Liberal Democrats In Coventry

In the 2008 local elections, the Greens were head-to-head against the Liberal Democrats in 13 wards. The Lib Dems won Upper Stoke. In Earlsdon, we have finished 3rd for three straight years, each time beating the Lib Dems into fourth.

In Cheylesmore, Longford, Lower Stoke, Radford, Sherbourne, Wainbody, Westwood and Whoberley, the Greens came within 150 votes of the Lib Dems.

Let's look at some of the differences between the Lib Dems and the Greens:

- Microsoft is one of the sponsors (see page 8) of the Lib Dem autumn conference this year; the Greens support open source software to help reduce the "digital divide" in society.

- The Liberal Democrats have 8 MPs (out of 63) who are women. Of the 19 different people who ran for the Lib Dems in Coventry in 2007 and 2008, only 6 were women. In contrast, half of our slate in Coventry, in both 2007 and 2008, have been women. The Greens have our new national leader, Caroline Lucas, and we ran Sian Berry as our candidate for London Mayor.

- The Greens favour bringing the train network back into public ownership; the Lib Dems have a "vision of the railways to 2050" that includes keeping the railways private

- The Greens have prominent out politicians, such as Darren Johnson (London Assembly), Patrick Harvie (MSP) or Peter Tatchell (PPC for Oxford East); the Lib Dems have gay/lesbian friendly policies, but you have to wonder about them internally, when there are these firestorms around Simon Hughes coming out as bisexual, and only one MP (Stephen Williams) who is out.

- The Lib Dems are having the same money problems (inadmissable donations) as Labour; in Q2 of 2008, the Lib Dems had 5 donors who gave more than £30 000 each, whilst total donations in the quarter to the Greens was £9300. The Green Party is more independent and can stand up for you without worrying about our corporate funders.

- The Liberal Democrats are in favour of retaining Trident. The Green Party rejects any reliance on nuclear weapons. We will decommission our own nuclear weapons. We will insist on the removal of US nuclear bases. We will have no further research into nuclear weapons. The export of nuclear technology will be stopped. We're pretty clear on nuclear.

If you like what you've been reading, take a close look at our other policies, and see if you agree with them too.

You might be a Green .... Crime

You might be a Green if you agree with the following statements:

- The Green Party wants to encourage responsible use, not binge use, of alcohol by both adults and young people. We need more police in drinking areas on Fri and Sat night. We want to encourage the serving of alcohol in smaller measures -- all these specials on triple sambucas. We'd increase penalties on drink driving. Better late-night public transport means less alcohol-related crime. We'd review late licenses that are going awry (a lot of the complaints coming out of the "nighttime economy" in Earlsdon)

- We need projects that engage high-risk youth

- We need to crack down on gun crime by introducing a tough licensing system, and work to cut off the supply of guns to the UK

- We should ban the sale of replica guns

- Where appropriate, offenders should be brought together with their victims, so that they can be made aware of their impact on people’s lives, and, where possible, can make reparation for their crimes

- We can tackle drug-related crime by increasing the provision of treatment for addiction and breaking the link between drugs and criminal activity

- Homophobic and transphobic crimes should be dealt with on a par with racist crimes. Police forces should adopt and implement action plans on homophobic and transphobic hate crimes.

- We need more community police, holding community surgeries, and who are mobile (on teams of bicycles)

- 70% of crime is solved by "community-led intelligence" -- local people telling police information. Instead, the recent emphasis has been on investment in "listening" and "talking" CCTV. Cameras can't apprehend people if you're getting beat up. Cameras can only record what's going on

- Cameras already record us 300 times a day. With CCTV, ID cards and databases, we’re sleepwalking into a surveillance society.

Sexual Health In Coventry

The Terrence Higgins Trust just sent me an interesting email.

They are asking voters to ask local election candidates three questions:

1) Will you ensure HIV and sexual health are made a priority in new joint working agreements between the NHS and the Local Authority?

2) Will you work with schools, school governors, and the Local Authority to make sure all young people in your area receive high quality Personal, Social and Health Education, which includes information on sex and relationships, drugs and alcohol and sexuality issues?

3) Will you use your influence to ensure that HIV and sexually-transmitted infection testing is easily available locally, and in a range of settings?

You can find the mailing addresses of all candidates running in Coventry through the following PDF document on the council's website.

See also: HIV testing in Coventry (THT)

Discrimination Against Gay And Lesbians

Stonewall has commissioned a poll (by YouGov) of gay and lesbian people in Britain. It's very revealing about people experiencing/expecting discrimination by public bodies.

- 80% believe they would have difficulty if they were to apply to become a school governor
- A significant minority expect to be treated less well at a GP surgery or during an emergency admission to hospital
- 90% expect barriers to becoming a foster parent
- Nearly nine in 10 think they would face barriers in being selected to run for public office from the Conservative party, 61% for Labour, and 47% from the Liberal Democrats.

You can read the entire report here -- it's called "Serves You Right" (PDF file, 631 kb)

Upcoming Events - 20th Feb To 2nd Mar

1) All this week is the "Go Green Week" at the University of Warwick. More information can be found here. There is a "Green Question Time" event on Thursday night, which involves Ian Davison (the Green candidate in 2005 in Warwick/Leamington) and Michael Meacher (former Environment minister for Labour).

2) I'm giving a talk to Coventry University's International Relations Society next Tuesday, the 26th February, 5pm for a 530pm start. It's part of Cov Uni's Environment Week. It'll be at Meeting Room 1 in their Students Union building, in Priory Street, by the Cathedral.

3) On Saturday 23rd February, from 1230pm to 330pm, the Herbert is having a drop in session called "Queering Coventry" as part of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) History Month. The Herbert is launching a project to collect the LGBT history of Coventry. As they say: "Whether you remember the Christmas lights at the Stonebridge 'magic' roundabout, Chris Smith MP coming out in Rugby, or the founding of Lesbian Line and Coventry Friend – or if you want to help collect this history – please come along."

4) Garden Organic Ryton is having a short course on Saturday 1st March, 130pm to 430pm, on "Planning an organic vegetable garden", £25 for members, £30 for non-members. It's their beginners guide to organic vegetable growing -- basic organic principles, plot planning and design, assessing soil type and fertility and planning a crop rotation.

5) There will be a Palestinian brunch, and talk, on Sunday 2nd March, 1pm to 4pm, at Habibi's on Far Gosford Street. Taysir Arbasi is a founder member and project director of Zaytoun in Palestine, who works with marginalised farming communities in the West Bank. You can find Zaytoun olive oil at Kendall's Deli on Earlsdon High Street. If you're interested, contact Ann Farr in advance (for numbers for the food, I suppose) on annfarr@phonecoop.coop, or 02476 679 398.

THT - Young Leaders Grants

The Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) is inviting groups of teenagers to apply for a grant to start projects that will teach your peers about safe sex, sexually-transmitted diseases, and how to deal with difficult relationships.

- The grants are for up to £1000
- Some of the suggestions that they have already had include: improv theatre on sex and relationships education, projects to address sexual or homophobic bullying, youth training youth on contraception, or podcasts.
- You will need to work in partnership with a youth work professional, from a school/organisation who agrees to support your project
- The organisation needs to agree to account for the funding your project receives.
- The project must benefit young people aged between 13 and 19 years old, with the exception of projects that support young people with a physical or learning disability.

The deadline is the 29th of February 2008.

For more information, you can find links to the application forms and guidance here.

The local contact for more information on this is Mick Mason, at THT-Coventry, on Manor Road, near the rail station, 02476 229 292, mick.mason@tht.org.uk

Hatred Against Gays And Lesbians

Jack Straw has announced new plans to make inciting hatred against gay people a crime.

A recent YouGov poll, by Stonewall, found that 89% of people would support such a move. The full report from Stonewall, "Living Together," can be found here.

Stonewall welcomed the announcement, with chief executive Ben Summerskill saying: "A new offence will help deter extremists who stir up hatred against lesbian and gay people ... We refuse to accept any longer that there's no connection between extreme rap lyrics calling for gay people to be attacked or fundamentalist claims that all gay people are paedophiles, and the epidemic of anti-gay violence disfiguring Britain's streets."

Stephen Fry - HIV And Me

An interesting programme on BBC 2 tonight at 9pm.

Stephen Fry, a patron of the Terrence Higgins Trust, presents the first of a two-part documentary on how HIV infections are rising, particularly among three groups: the young; black African communities; and heterosexuals.

He was interviewed about the programme for the Northern Echo:

Stephen believes the only way to fight the global battle against the HIV virus is to destroy the deeply entrenched stigmas through frank and honest dialogue. "Talking about Aids is precisely what helps to dispel the myths," he says. "At the moment HIV is a bit like Voldemort and we all have to be Harry Potter and be brave enough to say his name, and then it will get less and less powerful the more we do. However, if we continue to privilege it with this huge power and mystique and make out that it's best not talked about, then it will flourish."

See also: HIV testing in Coventry (THT)

Gordon Brown Breaks AIDS Funding Pledge

Britain currently gives £100 million each year to the Global Fund for Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis.

Douglas Alexander (not only the international development secretary, but the coordinator of the next general election) now says the UK will give £1bn over 8 years.

So, a 25% increase over its current funding.

The problem is that the grand G8 promises from June 2007 were to triple the funding to the Global Fund by 2010.

Elton John, writing in the Guardian last Saturday:

In many regions governments are hostile or reluctant to provide services for the most marginalised groups: men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and prisoners. In responding to this need, my foundation is guided by what is effective rather than what is politically expedient. I have met brave activists who face threats and harassment as they help marginalised groups access basic services. Here again the fund is crucial. It has the flexibility to channel funds without toeing a particular political line.

Gordon Brown's leadership and vision on this issue are needed right now. Were the UK to provide £700m over three years, tripling its annual contribution by 2010, it would challenge the rest of the world to follow suit. A bold pledge would encourage countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the US to do their part.

These decisions directly affect whether people live or die, and I urge the British government to take a lead in ensuring these promises are kept. Honour the pledge.

Conservatives and Gay/Lesbian "Lifestyles"

Sayeeda Warsi ran for the Tories in Dewsbury in the 2005 general election.

Her campaign literature for Muslim voters in the constituency included phrases like:

"Labour has scrapped Section 28, which was introduced by the Conservatives to stop schools promoting alternative sexual lifestyles such as homosexuality to children as young as seven years old"

"Labour reduced the age of consent for homosexuality from 18 to 16, allowing schoolchildren to be propositioned for homosexual relationships."

Other pieces of campaign literature, targeted at white areas, had a strong anti-immigration theme.

Naturally, with this background, she became a vice-chair of the party.

Now, David Cameron has parachuted her into the House of Lords to be a front bench spokesperson for, of all things, social cohesion. Social cohesion, as long as you aren't gay, lesbian or bi.

Warsi, confronted with the leaflets from 2005, has said that people can be gay and lesbian in their private lives, and referred to being gay and lesbian as "lifestyles", and that she would want sex education to be "out of the school system, initially."

This is what lies behind the spin and surface appeal of David Cameron.

Gay Pride Celebrations

The Observer today has a collection of first-person recollections of the 40 years since the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. As Peter Tatchell highlights in an article from 1997, the Act didn't legalise homosexuality. The 1967 "exempted gay sex from criminal prosecution if it took place between two consenting males aged 21 or over in private." London's Pride celebrations are next weekend, but internationally, Christopher Street Day was yesterday in Berlin (marking the anniversary of the Stonewall Tavern riots in New York, the tavern was on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village). Toronto's Gay Pride parade, 800 000 strong, is today, as is New York's.

Stella Duffy, author, 44
I don't see that the same thing has happened for lesbians as it has for gay men. We didn't really get the feminist revolution we hoped for. I'm happy for Elton and David, but we don't have a lesbian couple of a similar status and people often forget that gay includes women.

Rhona Cameron, comedian/author, 41
Gay men are a good commodity and fit in with today's celebrity obsessed culture, but lesbians have not. It's more of a taboo. People don't know how to market lesbians or deal with their diversity and there are a lot of famous lesbians who never say they are gay. Equalising the age of consent was right and the civil rights work done by Labour has been phenomenal. A couple of months ago a woman called me a lesbian cunt in a road rage incident and it's fantastic to know that if I had wanted to I could have reported that as a hate crime. For someone who has put up with abuse like that my whole life, that's brilliant.

Russell T Davies, writer/producer, 44
The internet has been the most phenomenal thing for young gay people and more empowering and liberating than any law. You used to feel completely alone, and now you can go online and meet thousands of people like yourself. The day a 12-year-old can watch telly with his dad and go 'Cor, look at him' when a sexy man appears on screen, and for the dad to laugh like he would if it were Pamela Anderson, we will be getting somewhere.

Simon Callow, actor, 58
Four Weddings and a Funeral was a landmark because it showed a gay man who died of something other than Aids. When the character that I played died, and John Hannah made that beautiful speech quoting Auden, I think an awful lot of people who might in their minds have disapproved of homosexuality found that they were very moved by the death of this gay man.

Sexual Health and Coventry

A third of university students, surveyed by Terrence Higgins Trust and the NUS, thought latex condoms had holes in them large enough to allow HIV to pass through. They don't.

More than one in 10 of the 2,200 who took part in the survey didn't know how to put a condom on correctly. One in 10 also believed condoms should be stored in a warm place -- this may lead them to deteriorate.

With two universities in our city, this is as much of a Coventry issue as any.

Lisa Power, head of policy at Terrence Higgins Trust said:

"University students are no smarter than many other young people when it comes to sexual health. They are just as likely to believe myths about condoms and to have got more of their sex education in the playground than the classroom. We spend a fortune educating students, but leave them ignorant about key issues in their adult lives. It's hardly surprising that rates of sexually transmitted infections are soaring."

I agree with the THT's call for sex and relationships education to be compulsory in schools.

Young people need information around negotiating safer sex, how to use condoms and how to deal with relationships.

See also: HIV testing in Coventry (THT)

Brighton Greens' Gay Manifesto

The Brighton and Hove Green Party has made 15 pledges to the city’s LGBT communities ahead of the May 2007 city council elections:

Two of them stand out:

- Build on the Green-led campaign against the 30% cuts to the HIV/Aids budget to ensure that the special needs and profile of Brighton and Hove are recognised by NHS budget commissioners.
- Provide head teachers with training on how to create safe and inclusive environments for LGBT staff and students.

Late last summer, inspired by this EDM (a straw poll amongst MPs), I wrote to the heads of King Henry VIII and Finham to urge them to have an anti-bullying policy, with specific content for homophobic bullying.

World AIDS Day

The Terrence Higgins Trust will be holding a candlelit vigil under the canopy at Broadgate at 6pm this afternoon to mark World AIDS Day.

The vigil will include a reading of names of those who have died. It will be followed by an interfaith service in Coventry Cathedral which starts at 7pm.

As well, on Saturday, there will be a fundraising night at Rainbows (Short Street), and an evening of awareness-raising cabaret at Dogme next Wed night. The Dogme event is a fundraiser for THT, and it starts at 8pm (£5 each or £8 for two). Tickets can be bought from George at THT in Coventry 024 7622 9292 or directly from Dogma.

You can download a poster to promote the events from this link at Coventry Unison's webpage.