Boris keep your promise!

London currently only has one rape crisis centre to support female victims of rape in a city with 3.9 million women. In his election manifesto, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson promised he would fund three new rape crisis centres for London at a cost of £2,230,000. He said he would divert £744,000 a year that the previous mayor spent on publicity. Since then, however, the cycling mayor has been furiously back-pedalling on this pledge and that figure changed to £1,400,000, 37.3% less. Campaigners, as the video below makes clear, are less than impressed.



It would appear that the mayor who famously referred to his £250k salary for writing his newspaper column as 'chicken feed' isn't placing a very high priority on supporting rape victims. For more details, including ways you can help, visit the Boris Keep Your Promise website.

UPDATE 18th August: There is a petition you can sign about this on the 38 Degrees website.

Ladywell women say 'Give us a Break' Nestle?!

Hats off to whoever daubed 'Sexist nonsense - give us a break' on this KitKat advert on Ladywell Road today. One bit of graffiti I won't be rushing to report to lovelewisham.

I took the photo in the dark so in case it's not readable it says 'Goodwill to all women' then underneath it says 'only 165 calories'. That's right men, no need to bother with the calorie counting -that's just for us women.

I couldn't quite believe the message this advert sent out when I first saw it at London Bridge station, and it seems I'm not the only one to find it a tad insulting. Apparently Nestle are planning to spend £16m advertising KitKat over the next year, so plenty more opportunities for a bit of subvertising, perhaps.

UPDATE 21/12/08: top of Adelaide Avenue:

Prostitution

The horrific murders in Ipswich have once more thrown the issue of prostitution, the law and the safety of sex workers into the spotlight. Sadly the murder of women sex workers is all too common, and sometimes it seems that it's only when a serial killer is on the loose that it attracts much attention.

I could be wrong, but I think the Green Party is unique amongst the main parties in having policies to decriminalise prostitution, with the primary aim of protecting the rights and safety of sex workers. Our policy can be viewed here (scroll down to where it says Prostitution and the Sex Industry). I attended a packed workshop on the subject at the Autumn Conference, where the vast majority of those present supported the policy as a whole, though some felt we didn't give enough attention to supporting women who wanted to move out of the industry, as well as protecting those who didn't. I'd be interested to hear people's views on the policy.

(and on a lighter note, it will also be interesting to see how many extra hits the blog gets just by having the words 'sex' and 'prostitution' in a posting !).

Addendum: Having posted this, I've just seen that Jim has beaten me to it with a much more detailed and coherent posting on the same subject over on his Daily (Maybe) blog.