London Pride

Pride parades. They happen all over the world, and if you live in any settlement larger than an Amazonian fishing village, I expect you've seen one first-hand. Last Saturday was London's, and, since I had the misfortune of finding myself right in the middle of it, I thought I would share my impressions of this year's festivities. What sets them apart from the rest? Do they have a particular flavour, not found in San Francisco or Berlin or New York? What do they represent?

Well, the first thing that strikes one is the fact that London's parade, a grandiose affair that threads its way from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, seems to have become a celebration primarily of the National Health Service. Standing behind the shoddy barricades that lined the route of the parade, and avoiding as best I could any form of eye contact, I was only half surprised to find that every second placard, banner, or truck upon which people gyrated, was devoted in some way to nurses, doctors, psychiatric wards, children's hospitals, and so on. At one point I saw a giant, rainbow-coloured NHS balloon. Add to that a smattering of signs endorsing industrial action ('Want a daddy to protect you? Join a union.') and some Gazan kaftans, and you get the impression that Pride represents, in the minds of its enthusiasts, every facet of our strange new national religion. In any case it's quite taken over the old one, judging by the ugly little party then taking place in the yard of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Moving on, groping my way as best I could towards a favourite pub in Belgravia, I couldn't help but notice a distinct lack, in the crowd itself, of gays. For every mincing man in leather I counted ten obviously straight women, many of them with children and husbands in tow, all with that 'don't ruin this for me' look in their eyes. I suppose Pride is 'the thing to do' for these mothers; they probably talk about it for months beforehand at work or at cafés in their sad little neighbourhoods. Clearly they came prepared; there was no shortage of rainbow plasters ready to hand when one of their little ones grazed a knee. Thirty years ago they would've been organising tombolas and church fêtes. What once was the province of small, hated, self-destructive communities found in great cities like London and San Francisco, and nowhere else, has become an opportunity, very much like Glastonbury or Burning Man, for the unfashionable middle classes to feel rebellious, so long as they are safe, organised, and, thanks to the ginormous water bottles everywhere in evidence, well hydrated. These reductions of revolutionary fervour to bourgeois pastime are nothing new; think, for instance, of Monsieur Homais in Madame Bovary, a grasping small-town pharmacist who sees fit to name his eldest son Napoleon.

Above all else, I was taken aback by the sheer lack of energy. Of course there was a lot of shouting and whooping when the floats went by, and some grotty areas had been set up where people could drink and dance, but generally speaking, the whole thing felt subdued, grey as the monochrome posters everywhere celebrating the event. I don't think I saw a single kiss, certainly no fornication. Take even a slight detour from the main route, and you encounter clumps of lethargic people, disconsolate, littering the grand old streets. There were a great many sleepy-looking children, most of them clearly bored to death. The atmosphere was palpably stale and sexless, no doubt owing to the huge presence of pensioners, and a student generation raised to believe that unsolicited handholding is a form of sexual assault, so socially inept they're apt to have a panic attack ordering a pizza. There is zero edge; it's like going to a once fashionable nightclub, frequented now by nobody save older men in polo shirts and women in leopard print. It's no surprise, then, that this year's Pride was led by one Yasmin Benoit, an activist and model who claims to be 'asexual' and 'aromantic'. A great comfort I'm sure, both for the anxious students and the wary-looking cyclists ferrying them around in glittering rickshaws.

Despite all this, the papers and politicians will call it a success. Gushing articles will be published, celebrating the diversity of our capital city. Sadiq Khan will make a smug appearance on some podcast, and Keir Starmer's team will make a suitable post on his X account. Everyone will give themselves a big pat on the back and call each other brave, and the disturbing truth will go unmentioned; that Pride has become, perhaps always was, a celebration of conformity and the overmastering power of the modern state, of its ability to entangle everything that comes its way within its web until there is scarcely anything left that remains free of its control.

Still, it's not all doom and gloom. After making my escape I walked down Whitehall and swung a right towards Hyde Park. Sitting on a bench in that marvellous quiet where dappled sunlight plays among the green shade, I saw a group of youths no older than twenty, sitting on the grass in strange, theatre kid costumes, having a good time. They were laughing and dancing and laying their heads in each other's laps, in a way that reminded me that there is always a place, even in the midst of such ugliness, for friendship and carelessness, even for love, and that no government or NGO, no matter how deranged and tyrannical, can lay its grubby hands on everything. Who knows? Maybe Pride will become so obviously a thing for geriatrics and school teachers that young people will turn away from it of their own accord and for good. Time will tell.