The Standard View: Jake Daniels’s bravery in coming out is a beacon to others

David Sionds
WEST END FINAL

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As is so often the case in sport, the bravery of youth has triumphed over experience. Seventeen-year-old Jake Daniels’s decision to come out as the UK’s only openly gay active male professional footballer is a watershed moment. Daniels wasn’t the subject of a whispering campaign or outed in the press. Instead, he did it as he was “ready to be myself, be free and be confident”. He has come out to his family, friends and teammates, and coming out to the rest of the world was a natural next step.

Britain is a different country from the one in which Justin Fashanu came out in 1990. Back then, Section 28, the clause of the Local Government Act which banned the publication of material with the intention of “promoting” homosexuality, was only two years old. The age of consent for gay men was 21, compared with 16 for straight people. And discrimination in wider society was rife.

Today, we have marriage equality, same-sex adoption and changed attitudes. Yet an openly gay, active male footballer in this country remained conspicuous by their absence. Which was odd — openly gay people exist and flourish across all workplaces, and indeed in the women’s game. It is 2022, it should never have taken this long. But it takes pioneers to change a culture. Jake Daniels is exactly that.

He will need the support of his team, industry and the wider public because the sad reality is he will face abuse from some quarters. But his greatest achievement is to make it easier for others to follow suit.

Economic evolution

It didn’t take the Governor of the Bank of England to wave his monetary wand to stop people enjoying pay rises — the Office for National Statistics has revealed that real wages fell by 1.2 per cent between January and March. That is in spite of a tight labour market where, for the first time, there are more job vacancies than unemployed people.

If you knew nothing else about the UK economy, the fact that unemployment had fallen to 3.7 per cent, the lowest since 1974, would be cause for celebration and a Government on track to romp home to re-election. Of course, more than one thing can be happening at the same time.

There has been a significant rise in the number of people becoming economically inactive. Bonus pay is highly sector-specific. Brexit means that many firms are struggling to find additional staff from abroad. The pandemic has reshaped the labour market, not only with the impact of long Covid, but the choices employers and employees are making and ultimately how we live our lives. These changes will take time to filter through. There is more employee power and that should be welcomed. People have more choices about where and how they work. At the same time, this creates challenges for the London economy, reliant as it is on the hospitality and retail sectors. The capital is resilient and will always find a way through choppy economic waters, but it will need to evolve to new realities.

Waiting for a train

There is only a week to go until the Elizabeth line formally opens. Cutting journey times, boosting capacity and with cathedral-like stations, it is a feat of engineering that befits a great city. The line gets a royal welcome today and with seven days to go, we cannot wait.

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