London's Metropolitan Police have estimated that a massive 825,000 people attended Pride London 08. The police numbers, which are traditionally very cautious, have been calculated by specialist analysis of CCTV and aerial photography. This makes last Saturday's event the biggest pride event ever to have taken place in the UK and puts it in the top 5 attended prides in the world.*
GLOBE members joined in the fun, participating with two of Pride's Headline Sponsors: Ford and the TUC.
Ford's participation was led by the Stonewall Lions FC who won the Ford Pride Football Tournament. Accompanied by a Samba band, dancers, and GLOBE members from Ford and Ford Credit, the winning team was close to the head of the parade and received their trophy on the main stage of Pride in Trafalgar Square.
From the TUC float Trevor reports that: "We had a successful pride again this year with the weather holding out for us . Streets of London were packed with tourist. A very early morning start with the FBU displaying there usual courtesy of providing a morning breakfast. A picture taken with the resource group organisers. There were lots of interest about our recourse group GLOBE. It was clear that many organisations have been looking at Ford and how we do things. Bullying and education with diversity was a talking point through out the day and it was important to share our idea's with the other recourse groups in the industry. The Fire Brigade and the NHS officers were very keen to keep in touch with us and I am hoping to invite them to Dagenham on a special inter-relations visit."
* Figures from the Pride website: www.pridelondon.org