The first British case of AIDS was diagnosed at the end of 1981. Just over three years later, in March 1985, testing for HIV was introduced and 2,935 positive diagnoses were recorded within the first six months.

Even at that stage we knew that this number was only the tip of the iceberg and there was an urgent need to educate those at risk as well as support those with a positive diagnosis. In the first instance, the bulk of these tasks were undertaken by voluntary organisations like London Gay Switchboard and the Gay Medical Association. Then, in 1983, the UK’s first HIV/AIDS-specific organisation – the Terrence Higgins Trust – was established.

But despite its key role in responding to the emerging AIDS crisis, the Trust had to rely on voluntary labour and charitable donations for the first two years of its life. With the British Government choosing a ‘wait and see’  approach to the issue – in spite of the evidence from the USA – it was left to the Greater London Council (GLC) to step in with some urgently needed funds. The sum wasn’t huge – £17,000 – but enough to employ two staff members to oversee the huge amount of work undertaken by volunteers.

Nonetheless, even this paltry sum was deemed by the Conservative-controlled Westminster Council to be an inappropriate use of public funds. They took the GLC to court, challenging the validity of the grant. The challenge was subsequently dismissed by the High Court and the Trust was finally able to proceed with the recruitment of its first paid staff in September 1985.

The leader of Westminster Council at that time was Dame Shirley Porter, heir to the Tesco supermarket empire. Evidently her concerns about the effective management of public funds were short-lived. Less than a year later, in order to retain power, she instituted a range of council policies that favoured marginal seats and actively discriminated against Labour-held areas. One of these policies – the so-called ‘Building Stable Communities’ programme – involved keeping council properties vacant until they could be sold off to private buyers.

These policies, which were heavily subsidised by ratepayers, were subsequently declared to be illegal and Porter was found liable to pay £47million in reparation. In response, the Tesco heiress claimed that she was only worth £300,000, then subsequently fled to Israel. She finally paid up in 2004.