Taking Liberties

Alas Poor H.C.?

Extraordinary rendition is back in the news this week, with the announcement that in 2004 two men in Iraq were handed over by British forces to the US military and were then transported to Afghanistan. On Monday, Binyam Mohamed, who had spent four years in Guantanamo Bay returned to Britain. He alleged he had been tortured and his captors received information from British intelligence. These are issues that will not go away, not least because of President Obama's recent statement on rendition.

The exhibition places a good deal of early emphasis on these issues, displaying the 1679 Habeas Corpus act and examining occasions when it has been suspended, or defended by individuals such as the 19th-century journalist Thomas Wooler (published of the Black Dwarf, above) or Sun Yatsen, who published an account of his time 'Kidnapped in London' in 1896. States have always felt the the need to curtail people's freedoms; and we are always shocked at the abuses of the past. Yet, there are always voices saying that it's different this time. Maybe. But I'd love to read what Wooler would be writing today.

15 Minutes of Fame (well, an hour)

Today you can apply to become a sculpture for an hour as part of Antony Gormley's fourth plinth commission in Trafalgar Square. For 100 days, 24 hours a day, from 6 July, a member of the public will be able to spend an hour on the empty plinth, doing whatever they want: Gormley will be very upset if 'somebody doesn't take off their clothes when they get there'.

We have a question on this in the Taking Liberties interactive (what should be on the fourth plinth, rather than the artistic merits of public nudity). The point being, who should be memorialised in this symbolic space - the monarchy, a leveller perhaps, or something current, rather than the past - and what does this say about where the power lies. Is sovereignty something embodied in the monarchy, in history, or the people? Anthony King, in his book The British Constitution, makes a good case that something happened around 1960, and the notion that sovereignty lay with the monarchy and parliament shifted so that is was seen ultimately to lie with the people. I suspect that Gormley would agree.

The Cabinet

A running theme of this blog could be things that we couldn't include for one reason or another. One item that we considered requesting as a loan was a document signed by all members of Lloyd George's cabinet in Inverness in 1921. The PM called the meeting during his holiday in Gairloch to respond to the declaration of the Irish republic. Until recently, it was the one confirmed occasion that the cabinet had met outside of London.

The signatures would have been interesting to display in the section on 'The United Kingdom?', but it would have also been something around which we could have discussed the idea of cabinet government. Traditionally, discussions in the cabinet are private - allowing, in theory, frank debate. Members are expected to present a united front afterwards. The need for a space for untrammelled debate within government is at the crux of the current decision not to make public the debate about decision on the Iraq War.

In the end, we decided not concentrate on the nuts and bolts of how the UK is governed (Parliamentary committees, how bills are scrutinised and legislated, the relationship between local and national government, and so on), but to try and bring out some of the crucial, central issues, such as where does power lie, what does sovereignty mean, and where did the idea of political 'rights' come from.

I suspect the final question will come up at a lecture taking place at Royal Holloway on 3 March, when Peter Linebaugh will be talking about the Magna Carta Manifesto. And, while I'm plugging, Will Kaufman will be playing and talking about the songs of Woody Guthrie at the BL this evening. Or, if you're staying in, find out more about Magna Carta on the One Show at 7pm.

Written questions

I was looking at Hansard to check on a possible blog posting about plans to change the law to allow hereditary peers to vote in general elections (in line with the Human Rights Act), when I came across a written question from Lord Dubs about 'what travel insurance, including personal medical insurance, is provided for Members of the House travelling on Select Committee or other parliamentary business; and how that compares to the insurance arrangements provided for Members of the House of Commons'. One gets a sense that a spirit of competition between the two Houses lives on.

The full answer, Lord Brabazon of Tara replied, lies on the 'intranet', as most answers seem to be these days. In essence, the Lords are covered up until the age of 85 when on parliamentary business (including getting to work at the Palace of Westminster). However, the Commons have an advantage: their spouses are covered as well.

I mentioned the Chartists yesterday. I wonder if this allowance, which might be labelled a perk, may be read in the spirit of the fourth of the Chartists 'six points': '4. Payment of members, thus enabling an honest tradesman, working man, or other person, to serve a constituency, when taken from his business to attend to the interests of the country.'You can read the rest of the points in the first edition of the 'People's Charter' in the wall case opposite the entrance to the exhibition.

Speaking of travel, the Library is very handy for several train and underground stations, and there's decent cycle parking in the piazza (did I mention that the exhibition closes on 1 March?).

Please wait for further announcements...

A trip to Wales at the weekend, which meant a long wait in the coffee shop at Newport station thanks to 'an electical fault', 'problems in the Cardiff area' and 'level crossing issues'. It is a week to go before St David's Day (1 March – which coincides with the last day of the exhibition), so I was thinking about the Welsh aspects of the exhibition.

The highlight has to be the Pennal Letter, generously loaned by the French Archives Nationales (although the Laws of Hywel Dda may come close). Last seen in the UK during the opening of the Welsh Assembly, it committed the Welsh, a people 'oppressed by the fury of the barbarous Saxons', to the obedience of the Avignon pope as part of Owen Glyn Dŵr's campaign for French support against the English in c.1406.

There are many legacies of this, not least the string of castles built by Edward I. Some of these I saw at the other side of the valley at the weekend, as well as, more tangentially, some of the graffiti daubed on bridges suggesting that I 'go home'. A delay with First Great Western, I reflected, wasn't helping with this.

Along with perhaps the earliest devolution pamphlet, there is a strong showing of Welsh material in the Chartist section. Newport witnessed perhaps the most violent incident of the Chartist campaign in 1839. On 4 November, John Frost led a large group of armed men into the town. Two other groups were supposed to join then (led by William Jones and Zephaniah Williams), but they were late or never arrived. The 3,000 armed men that did make it attacked the Westgate Hotel, where several Chartist prisoners were being held, guarded by 32 soldiers and several special constables.

Twenty of the Chartists were killed and many were injured. Frost was captured, and he was tried at a special assize in Monmouth on 10 December. On 16 January 1840 Frost was sentenced, along with Jones and Williams, to be hanged, drawn and quartered. There were protests at the severity of the sentences from MPs and on the streets. After a legal review, the sentence was commuted to transportation to Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania).

Frost eventually received a pardon in 1854, on condition that he never returned to Britain. He spent some time writing and lecturing in America, but finally returned to Britain in 1856, after the general pardon granted after the ending of the Crimean War. He died in Bristol in 1877.

Historians argue whether the Newport Rising was a peaceful protest gone bad, or part of a national armed conspiracy. There are certainly signs of detailed planning by Frost and his colleagues. It remains, for now, the last armed insurrection in the UK.

Meanwhile, the Convention on British Liberty has inspired an article in History Today, which argues that 'the freeborn Briton is a myth. British freedoms have always rested on custom and convention, not on any fundamental law: on the transient goodwill of a mostly generous political elite'. Still, perhaps the fact that the trains don't run always run on time points to a decent dash of disorder.

Snap

The Counter Terrorism Act (2008) passed into law this week, and to celebrate, 300 photographers gathered outside of Scotland Yard. In the National Union of Journalists' view, clause 76 of this act may make it a criminal offence to take a photograph of a police officer, if it is 'likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'. Taken along with section 44 of the Terrorism Act, the NUJ is worried that there are increasing threats to their right to report on the police. Dame Stella Rimington might agree (the Home Office doesn't).

Changing tack slightly, photography is one of those issues that divides people, not least because of the ease of digital dissemination I alluded to yesterday. It's one thing taking a snap of someone, or being snapped by them, and slowly turning yellow in an old photoalbum; it's another being plastered over somewhere like Flickr, and perhaps even being used in someone's marketing campaign. I took a photo of Regent's Canal on the weekend, and a couple were in the shot. The woman demanded to know where the picture was going (deleted, as it happens - and no, I'm not posting it here).

On the other hand, a fortnight ago, I walked by Primrose Hill in the snow with my camera, and happened to bump (almost literally) into the pop singer Lily Allen. I think she thought I was a paparazzo, and practically demanded that I take a photograph (I think she'd got to the top of the charts and was keen to milk the moment).

Some of this isn't as new as all that. Early photography was given an economic fillip by prints of the stars. And, centre stage in the exhibition section dealing with the Chartists, is a wonderful enlargement of the Great Chartist Demonstration of 1848. I think you can even spot a police officer.

Papers, please?

I popped down to the gallery this afternoon to check on something (it was packed, perhaps something to do with it being the last two weeks of the show?), and I was asked about the controversy surrounding a recent film and freedom of speech by a visitor.

I suspect that the balance between various freedoms is particularly actute at the moment at this point: privacy, public order, and the right to self-expression are often in conflict or a state of tension, and the spaces in which we can say things (and talk about saying things) are arguably freer, more democratic and more worrisome to various authorities than ever before. YouTube, the ever-expanding commentary sections of papers, blogs and even Twitter are vastly different spaces from the polite letters pages of the broadsheets (adieu, "Sir,", hello "WTF"). The traditional media is still there of course, as are the paparazzi, and the slogans and posters of the street protest (we've got at least three such posters in the show, from the Levellers' Petition, which may have been paraded through the streets of London, via a suffragette banner, to a recent gay rights poster). All of these can be magnified online, and disseminated in digital form as never before.

Perhaps it's no wonder that governments and Home Secretaries get a bit worried about such things. And the recent barring of a controversial Dutch MP made me think about how are borders are, and have been, policed, even as the internet seems to be breaking down borders. It's also instructive to walk around the exhibits, and realise how many of the authors of the items were forced into exile at one point or another, either fleeing Britain, or finding sanctuary here. Sun Yatsen, John Locke, Rousseau and Tom Paine are just some of those who had to make themselves scarce for one reason or another (although Paine could argue he was leaving Britain in 1792 to take up his seat in the French National Convention). There are no doubt others. One of the the cases that I wish we could have fitted in was to be of passports through the ages. Perhaps next time.

Conceived in Liberty

I always feel a bit sorry for Edward Everett, the 19th-century American professor, politician, governor and diplomat. He gave the oration at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery in November 1863, speaking for two hours (the text of the speech is here). Everett was famous for his erudition and his power as a speaker, but after he finished his great speech, the President stood up and added a few words. The three minutes that followed became perhaps the most famous speech ever given: Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. In contrast Everett's effort is almost completely forgotten.

I mention this for a couple of reasons. Today is the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. His legacy is perhaps the greatest of all the US presidents. For example, one of the treasures of the American Collections at the British Library is a rare printing of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln and his two secretaries of state, recording the intention to free the enslaved population. He is also, of course, remembered for his death in front of the play Our American Cousin in 1865.

I also like the idea that history is full of a jumble of events, some remembered, others declining into obscurity, like poor Everett's text. We have been able to put some of these on display in the exhibition, including a large document decorated with an array of seals that records the 'union that never was', a plan to unify the Scottish and English parliaments in 1604. The Scottish parliament approved, but the English did not. The two parliaments continued to exist independently for another century. It's always good to know that the future is not already written, and that we can have some say in it.

More personally (and with a reminded that there are only a few more weeks to see the exhibition) I'm also starting work on my next project, a 'web feature' at the Library, looking at the American Civil War, and in particular its connections with Britain. For example, anti-slavery campaigners boycotted Southern cotton, while Britain also supplied ships to the Confederate States, leading to the notorious Alabama Claims.

Finally, the sentiments of Lincoln's speech always bear repeating:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Watching the detectives

Among the items exploring the origins of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the exhibition is a letter from René Cassin, the French lawyer, pacifist campaigner and member of the UN committee that drew up the Declaration. He later went on to serve on the French Conseil Constitutionnel, which supervises elections and scrutinises legislation to make sure that it is compatible with the French constitution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the European Convention on Human Rights.

There is no exact equivalent in the UK, although a supreme court is on its way and will fulfil some of these functions. Parliament, of course, is also the home for these activities, and there are a number of committees that are concerned with constitutional affairs. One of these, the Lords Constitution Committee, is today publishing a report, Surveillance: Citizens and the State, which argues that pervasive technologies, such as CCTV and data collection, may undermine fundamental freedoms and rights to a private life.

This expansion, the report suggests, 'represents one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the Second World War'. What's the answer? Can the CCTV and DNA genie be put back in the bottle, or do we secretly find it too useful and even reassuring, as long as it's not us being hauled in for letting our pooches poop on the pavement or adding an extra bin-bag to a neighbour's pile?

The Committee proposes strengthened oversight, a culling of the national DNA database, compensation for those monitored unlawfully, and judicial scrutiny. I'm sure the timing is coincidental, but Google also announced the launch of its Latitude service this week.

To the last syllable of recorded public speaking

The exhibition opened alongside a very complimentary exhibition in the Front Hall of the Library: the Golden Generation, which looked at the theatrical challenge to censorship.

Today, a new exhibition opens – The Sound and the Fury: the power of public speaking (also in the Front Hall, and also free) – and it’s also extremely relevant. There are several speeches available to listen to in Taking Liberties, but in the Sound and the Fury you can also hear Lloyd George declaiming on the People’s Budget, some of Churchill’s most famous oratory, and even Tony Blair’s Downing Street victory speech.

The list goes on: Eamon de Valera, Booker T Washington, Malcom X… And it ranges beyond the political to the sporting and theatrical: a chance to hear Gwyneth Paltrow blub at the 1999 Oscars.