Taking Liberties

Prerogative Powers

Some of the more confusing (and arguably confused) aspects of the British Constitution are those relating to executive (or royal) prerogative.  Those with an interest in such matters may be pleased to know that the Ministry of Justice has just published a Final Report on these powers.  It will appear in the Library's collections, of course, but it's also online as a .pdf.

The report is full of fascinating detail, not least that the most comprehensive legal textbook on the matter is now 'nearly 200 years old' (Joseph Chitty, A Treatise on the Law of the Prerogatives of the Crown (1820)).   As well as the right to declare war, and so on, future and current monarchs' prerogatives include the sole right to the "printing or licensing the printing of the Authorised Version of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, state papers and Acts of Parliament" and also various "powers connected with prepaid postage stamps".

The MoJ is also seeking comments by 8 Jan 2010: RoyalPrerogativeReview@justice.gsi.gov.uk

Hashtags & Libel

Imagine if I couldn't say what this blog post is about, to what I am referring, who said it, or even if they said it.

As many of you will know, the Guardian newspaper was in exactly this position yesterday.  The internet, and in particular, Twitter, soon made this particular application of the law something of an ass, and the injunction was lifted.   A good day for freedom of speech, then, even if Wilkes would no doubt have been very surprised that such libel actions were in place in the twenty-first century.  The legal ramifications will no doubt take some time to sink in.  There is also more about the Bill of Rights, and parliamentary privilege, on the Taking Liberties website. 

Nobelled

Yesterday I promised more America and less politics.  I misspoke.  Today we have both.

After an interesting talk about how Euston Road might develop over the night few decades, the Americas Collections section returned to their desks to the news that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (despite some aides at first thinking at first it was a joke).  The citation praised Obama for creating a 'created a new climate in international politics', and seems to be as much a hope for the future direction of international diplomacy and the 'strengthening of democracy and human rights' as an endorsement of what has happened in the last nine months.  Good stuff, of course, but has created something of a debate online about the timing.

More prosaically, I am looking to see what this means in terms of materials to be added to the collections for future generations of researchers (and spending a little bit of time to see if we have anything on Kissinger and his gong).

P.S., a prize for anyone who can name the Peace Prize winners who made an appearance in Taking Liberties.

Poetry and Politics

The public have voted, and to some surprise perhaps, TS Eliot has triumphed as the 'nation's favourite poet'(for this year at least). The modernist from Missouri saw off Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, John Betjeman, John Keats, Dylan Thomas and, further down the list as the highest female poet, Wendy Cope, in a BBC poll marking the centenary of the Poetry Society.

The Poetry Society also celebrated this milestone by unveiling a massive, knitted poem on the British Library's piazza, above four buried storeys of books. It was an apposite place to unveil the blanket, as the knitters and poets could then head away from the rain, and take in the free exhibition inside the British Library - 'In a Bloomsbury Square' - which offers unseen materials from the Faber archive and Eliot estate. My current favourite item is the record of editorial decisions. On one page, WH Auden gets green-lighted, while poor RS Thomas gets a polite rejection.

The unveiling of the blanket happily married two crafts - knitting and poetry - that perhaps harks back to the 'make do and mend' of the 1930s and 40s, and which seems to be in vogue at the moment (there's a fun interview related to the return of craft as part of the 32nd Monocle Weekly, by the way). But to me, the recollection of this era also brought to mind the problems of politics at a time of extremes. I think that Eliot wanted to do away with politics, believing in something organic that lies underneath the clamour of party and ideology. This led him towards some very difficult territory: not something I feel qualified to comment on. Terry Eagleton's 2002 piece in the London Review of Books is as good a place as any to start thinking about this, though.

One of Eliot's central concerns was also the passage of time. I am aware that this blog has been running for over a year now, and the exhibition opened nearly 12 months ago. (The online exhibition, of course, continues.)  With this in mind, the focus may shift away from the concerns of the exhibition and how they may relate to current events, and towards the work of the Americas Collections here at the Library (as well as Eliot, we were pleased to see Plath on the list).  But for now, thank you for reading.