RIP La Liz

Photo I saw posted on Twitter...

Today, I was sad to hear that a true icon of Hollywood glamour has passed away: Elizabeth Taylor, surely one of the most beautiful women ever to be captured on celluloid.
 
 Though I loved watching her in films from National Velvet to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and as a child ws fascinated by stories of her many husbands,  the biggest impression she made on me was through her support of AMFAR. As a small child in the 1980s, AIDS was a hige, scary headline. Like most people my age I was fed myths by ignorant adults, it was a subject discussed in hushed tones and on news reports sprinkled with words like 'plague' and 'stigma'.

When glamorous Elizabeth Taylor came out publicly in support of AIDS sufferers, that, too made the news. It also revlolutionised my views and made me aware of AIDS as a humanitarian issue, as a topic to be approached with compassion and dignified with funding and research.

Elizabeth Taylor was one of the first few major celebrities to back AIDS charities, raising over $50 million during a crucial period. That - as much as her movies, diamonds and scandalous love life - is what I would like to remember her for.

No Soup for the Homeless

I'm really appalled by Westminster Council's decision to pass a bye-law which would not only make sleeping rough in the Westminster area illegal, but would also criminalise any charity or individual offering support to the homeless in the area.

The Council's justification for this act is that there is 'no need' for people to sleep rough and that the presence of the homeless makes life less pleasant for people living and working in the area. Why? My guess would be because it makes them feel guilty about their relatively privileged lives.

The Council also seems to think that food handouts to the homeless have no place in 21st-Century London and that giving  destitute people with no roof over their heads souo and sandwiches somehow 'encourages' people to live on the streets. I wonder if the individuals thinking up these ideas have ever wandered the streets of central London. A lot of the homeless people in the area are Big Issue sellers - they are already on their way to improving their situation - but they still need help. Being guaranteed a filling meal means people don't have to beg for food.

I feel that 21st-Century London - the affluent capital city of a country which wastes more food than any of its neighbours - is exactly the place where people who have nothing should be able to receive support, compassion and yes, free soup. Should the fragile, superficial sensibilities of those rushing off to spend money in Covent Garden boutiques be given more weight than the basic human needs of people who have nothing but worn clothes and a sleeping bag to their name? I don't think so.

Below is a video of a protest held against this measure a few days ago:

I fully agree that Londoners should be doing everything in their power to oppose this law and ensure that homeless people continue to receive vital support on London's streets. It is simply unacceptable to deny something as basicas food to people who have no means and nowhere to go.

In 2008, many journalists laughed at the Beijing authorities efforts to make their city palatable to an international Olympic audience. Westminster Council seems determined to present a similarlyartificial sanitised view of London by baniushing 'problems' like homelessness to the suburbs. The question is, will we let them?