Police forces ‘wasting tens of thousands’ on LGBT flags and lip balm

Police forces across England and Wales have spent tens of thousands of pounds on LGBT-branded merchandise.

According to a Freedom of Information request submitted by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, South Wales Police alone spent £24,000 on LGBT products including ‘Pride’ flags, T-shirts, whistles, and face paints between 2019 and 2022.

It was the largest spender of the 27 forces to respond, which paid a combined total of £66,689 for such items during that time period.

‘Rainbow fuzzy bugs’

Lancashire Police spent £1,500 on lip balm, flags, keyrings, lanyards and stickers, while Wiltshire Police paid £538 for lanyards and “rainbow fuzzy bugs”.

Amanda Tillotson, Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Kent Police, attempted to defend spending £8,000 on LGBT merchandise, claiming that it helps to “regularly remind the wider public of the importance of communities working together to support and protect each other”.

But Tom Ryan, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Police chiefs have been caught red-handed wasting money on woke nonsense. With crime on the up, it will bring little comfort to Brits knowing that bobbies are kitted out with rainbow merchandise”.

‘Common-sense’

Last year, a former advisor to Number 10 called on Westminster to ensure that police chiefs enforce law and order rather than people’s preferred pronouns.

Rory Geoghegan, a former Special Advisor on Justice and Home Affairs from 2020 to 2022, called the Home Secretary’s push for the police to return to ‘common-sense policing’ the “morally and intellectually” correct move.

In October, Home Secretary Suella Braverman KC MP criticised Leicestershire Police for misrepresenting the law on ‘hate crime’ in a tweet advising trans people to report the deliberate use of their ‘pre-transition’ name — so-called ‘deadnaming’.