Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The British Library is going to have big exhibition setting out the history of the struggle for democracy and fundamental rights in Britain. It's called Taking Liberties (not to be confused with the film, at a showing of which I first met Shami Chakrabarti). Yesterday I took in a copy of Charter 88 and lent it to Barbara O'Connor the Loans Registrar. The curator Matthew Shaw, who runs a neat blog on the progress of the exhibition carried the framed Charter through the Library complex into the strong room where Barbara guards the exhibits. There she allowed me to peer at the original copy of The Putney Debates of 1647, a great leather bound volume of the proceedings written out by in longhand from his own shorthand notes by Sir William Clarke. The exhibition will have everything from the death warrant of Charles Ist to the Good Friday Agreement; from Magna Carta to The Agreement of the People - the Leveller's historic constitutional manifesto, that I can't wait to see. It went through at least three editions, as I understand it, drafted in the main by the viciously punished John Lilburne, and was signed by proportionally many more people than Charter 88. Mutinous soldiers wore them in their hats to have them plucked out by Cromwell himself. It was, in effect, our first democratic proclamation, far more so, of course, than Magna Carta! And, as I have digressed, surely it is Freeborn John Lilburne who should be being saluted on the plinth in Trafalgar Square - there will not be democratic liberty in England until he is publicly celebrated.
Charter 88 went through many drafts, was even sent down the line digitally via a primitive modem, and then became an advertisement. So it was hard to know what 'the original' Charter 88 was. I decided to frame the great two-page advertisement that appeared in the Observer as it has not just the names of the more famous few attached to the initial appeal but also over 4,000 more from regular people who were the real founding signatories. Also, Angela Carter and Doris Lessing, two of my favoritie signatories, first appear in the Observer appeal.
Taking Liberties opens at the British Libary on 31 October, don't miss it!
