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Pride pool party on the roof of Shoreditch House.

That’s where I found myself yesterday. Don’t ask. But it was fabulous. I’d always been baffled by people who were “proud” of their homosexuality. I’m not suggesting for a moment they should be ashamed of it but surely your sexuality is just the way you happen to feel. Something for which you can’t really take any credit. So why the “pride”? Yesterday, I understood. Pride for many is, of course, a flamboyant annual celebration of being gay but it’s much more than that. It’s a celebration of tolerance, diversity, of live and let live, of love and let love. It’s a celebration of the way London and Londoners have always promoted that tolerance and welcomed people regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation. As someone who has never lived anywhere else, that gives me enormous pride.

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