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Pedestrians who walk in are told to "leave or just get ragged out anyway. You'll just get nicked." At 1:12 you can see the guard pull out two sheets of paper which we believe is once again a copy of the letter to Paul W from the Department For Transport.
Police with (no) pride: two officers from Greater Manchester Police are seen ignoring a request for assistance and choose to walk away from the situation.
The following three videos were recorded on the Saturday shortly after 5pm when LGBT campaigners, legal observers and other members of the public were at the gate at Sackville Street/Whitworth Street. Access to the streets is blocked by guards from FGH Security Ltd. who are employed by Manchester Pride. Police officers can be seen standing watching. Greater Manchester Police is paid more than £50,000 by Manchester Pride.
4 mins 45 secs: a tenant who has a letter isn't allowed in and is told to wait.
5 mins: a person with a wristband enters.
5 mins 47 secs: a guard clearly says "yes you have a wristband come on thru guys." The protesters point out that a "two-tier system" is being operated, which is not allowed.
6 mins 20 secs: police called and someone states "police won't help you at all"
6 mins 53 secs: tenant is allowed through.
8 mins 21 secs: more people allowed in, but not those without a band.
4 mins 55 secs: someone asks to speak to a police officer and is ignored. At 6:10 mins they ignore a legal observer who quotes the law.
Councillor Pat Karney at the Sackville Street/Whitworth Street gate on Saturday 23 Aug 2014 at around 5pm.
In 2030 this is what people will watch and talk about when Manchester Pride is discussed.
Our 2022 Factsheet (PDF) about Manchester Pride is available (there won't be a new factsheet for 2023). Read about your right to access the Gay Village without buying a wristband, history & opinion .
Download the PDF version.
And here it is as two images (handy for sharing on social media): page 1 | page 2
Our factsheet from 2021 is still well-worth a look. It has four pages of facts, gossip and fun. Download it as a PDF here. See our factsheets page for other years.
The ruling by the Local Government Ombudsman in April 2015 (PDF). The Ombudsman decided that Manchester City Council had exceeded its powers by mentioning wristbands in a traffic order and that it was unlawful to restrict access to premises (businesses and homes).
Minutes of a meeting at Marketing Manchester in November 2002. These show that those present were told they couldn't charge people to enter public streets. However some of them went ahead and did so from 2003 onwards for a decade.
At the meeting were: Manchester City Council, GHT, the LGF (now known as the LGBT Foundation), Marketing Manchester, the organisers of Europride 2003. The advice seems to have come from the police. Yet the police apparently then turned a blind eye...
This document was unearthed at the Library Archives quite recently by a FactsMCR campaigner.
Since the ruling by the Local Government Ombudsman in 2015 the media — both LGBT and mainstream — have stayed silent about the decade-long wristband fiddle and your rights. So some people continue to pay unnecessarily.
All your favourites know: GayStarNews, Pink News, Manchester Evening News, The Guardian, BBC and many more. In a letter to us, the BBC defended its journalist right not to report this. The same BBC that championed consumer rights at one time now prefers to cosy up to the civil-rights-infringing Manchester Pride, as a "sponsor" (the BBC says it doesn't give money).
These organisations don't need to lie. They simply ignore an issue completely. Or, they report some of the facts; perhaps popping in just one or two bits they don't like, to add a fake impression of balance. That's how they manipulate opinion in the direction they think it should go.
The veteran ITV reporter John Pilger says that "not reporting" is the most powerful form of censorship.
What else aren't they telling us?
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