Hillel Steiner, as part of Festival800, gave his audience at Lincoln Drill Hall a framework for viewing human rights that caught me unaware, but has since been taking shape in my unconscious mind.
It is so simple, but perhaps life makes us blind. Every human being has a right to equal freedom and an equal duty not to disturb the freedom of another.
He brought this into focus in the Philosophy Cafe that followed where we looked at the issue of migration. Steiner reminded us that the land of the world has been produced by no one and so no one is entitled to a greater share than anyone else (deep intake of breath); those who have by accident of birth a larger share are under a duty to compensate those with a lesser share (deeper intake of breath). Simple.
Further flesh was added by reference to the work of economist Henry George and his thinking about a since tax based only on land.
We then began to wade through the myriad of obstacles; the principle though remains.
My history of British Manufacturing
My history of British Manufacturing
Sunday, 30 August 2015
Sunday, 12 July 2015
The Pacific War
It was all over; for many it had been over since 8 May when Victory in Europe was declared.
I remember being in a tiny church in the Vale of Belvoir in Leicestershire in May 2005 and talking about Victory in Europe in the sermon I preached. After the service, when most people had left, I asked the churchwarden for his memories of VE Day.
‘We had no idea it had happened.’ He went on to tell me that he had been a prisoner of war in Japan and he and those who had survived with him had spent their years oblivious to anything that was happening outside their camp, unless the camp commander chose to tell them.
For the last year I have been researching a book, War on Wheels, about the mechanisation of the Army in WW2. It is about the many thousand soldiers, ATS and civilians who worked in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, my father’s Corps, and who were responsible for giving the army its wheels. As part of this I looked hard at the war in the Far East. My researches took me to the archives of the Imperial War Museum where I read accounts of the fall and surrender of Singapore and Hong Kong and then the first hand accounts of some of those Ordnance men who survived their imprisonment. I remember sitting at the desk holding the typed and handwritten sheets of paper telling of just what human beings are capable of doing to each other. It was a sacred experience.
I decided that these accounts must be in my book both to honour those men but also to offer to my readers a whole picture, warts and all.
A short while ago I came upon a piece on television about two old men, one a former PoW and the other one of his guards. We saw them shaking hands and smiling. The former PoW said quite simply, ‘you could go on hating until you die, but what is the point?’
It made me think hard about whether I should change my mind and, in the interests of reconciliation, remove the offending passages.
I have decided to leave them in. It is, for good or ill, part of the horror of war. I have said more than once that politicians and others sadly need reminding of these horrors before they send our young men and women to fight.
We have moved on, but I believe we must remember, I think, for two reasons. Firstly, for those men and women who gave up their lives and endured so much for our sake. Those I have read about weren’t soldiers by choice. Many were store-men or mechanics or clerks. They were caught up in a maelstrom; they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They conducted themselves with enormous bravery and dignity. We must never forget them.
The second reason is that it was, as I said earlier, human beings doing unspeakable things to other human beings. We see reminders every day that this is not a thing of the past. If we stand up against anything, surely it must be this.
I remember being in a tiny church in the Vale of Belvoir in Leicestershire in May 2005 and talking about Victory in Europe in the sermon I preached. After the service, when most people had left, I asked the churchwarden for his memories of VE Day.
‘We had no idea it had happened.’ He went on to tell me that he had been a prisoner of war in Japan and he and those who had survived with him had spent their years oblivious to anything that was happening outside their camp, unless the camp commander chose to tell them.
For the last year I have been researching a book, War on Wheels, about the mechanisation of the Army in WW2. It is about the many thousand soldiers, ATS and civilians who worked in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, my father’s Corps, and who were responsible for giving the army its wheels. As part of this I looked hard at the war in the Far East. My researches took me to the archives of the Imperial War Museum where I read accounts of the fall and surrender of Singapore and Hong Kong and then the first hand accounts of some of those Ordnance men who survived their imprisonment. I remember sitting at the desk holding the typed and handwritten sheets of paper telling of just what human beings are capable of doing to each other. It was a sacred experience.
I decided that these accounts must be in my book both to honour those men but also to offer to my readers a whole picture, warts and all.
A short while ago I came upon a piece on television about two old men, one a former PoW and the other one of his guards. We saw them shaking hands and smiling. The former PoW said quite simply, ‘you could go on hating until you die, but what is the point?’
It made me think hard about whether I should change my mind and, in the interests of reconciliation, remove the offending passages.
I have decided to leave them in. It is, for good or ill, part of the horror of war. I have said more than once that politicians and others sadly need reminding of these horrors before they send our young men and women to fight.
We have moved on, but I believe we must remember, I think, for two reasons. Firstly, for those men and women who gave up their lives and endured so much for our sake. Those I have read about weren’t soldiers by choice. Many were store-men or mechanics or clerks. They were caught up in a maelstrom; they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They conducted themselves with enormous bravery and dignity. We must never forget them.
The second reason is that it was, as I said earlier, human beings doing unspeakable things to other human beings. We see reminders every day that this is not a thing of the past. If we stand up against anything, surely it must be this.
Friday, 12 June 2015
Would one super festival be a better stage for Lincoln's talents?
The Lincoln year is punctuated by festivals of one kind or another; my question is whether we might be better served were they brought together in one - say - two week period in the summer? This could be put another way, would a single Lincoln Festival be a greater attraction for our visitors?
The Festivals in the Lincoln calendar, for example the Book Festival, The Chamber Music Festival and Frequency, are well supported, of good quality and greatly enjoyed. This year a number of different events are being brought together around the Magna Carta weekend and the Magna Carta celebrations more generally. These embrace film and beer as well as street entertainment and offerings for big outdoor audiences at the Castle.
The Drill Hall plays its part in the existing festivals and also in the Magna Carta events. For the weekend itself, we act as ‘book ends’ with dance at the beginning and music at the end, and quite a bit in the middle as well. The Dance, a piece entitled Refugees of the Septic Heart from Tom Dale productions, is a great example of how to offer an alternative view. In the early discussion about the commemorations of the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta, I became worried that it might focus too much on the historical event or just attract ‘establishment’ celebrations.
Tom Dale’s piece is distinctly alternative, it questions established values, in many ways it does what the founding fathers of America believed Magna Carta did; it stands up to those who seek to exercise power. Specifically it explores how the power of money is abused. It does this with dance but also with digital imagery and music. It is a first for Lincoln and one to be proud of since, having been a hit at the Edinburgh fringe, the production will next be performed in Hong Kong.
The music at the end of the Magna Carta weekend is quite different and will be the result of Sinfonia Viva working with local schools and the creative efforts of the children.
These two events demonstrate something of what the Drill Hall is about, giving space to new and adventurous work and being a place where Lincoln people can participate in performance. Of course the Drill Hall is about more than this; its role is to be there for a whole range of Lincoln communities and offer, perhaps not something for everyone, but certainly a variety of performance that will be enjoyed by most.
So, back to the question of the Festival, do we want a big Lincoln Festival? It would give audiences the chance to experience a number of different forms of performance: theatre, film, dance, music and literature. It could be built round a theme, as the Magna Carta weekend is. It could say something about what is special about Lincoln: a vibrant modern city in an historical setting. Importantly, it could give space for home grown talent to perform.
Well, perhaps the Magna Carta weekend will be a good taster. My instinct is that we will want a bit of both. Certainly something big that brings the city together and offers a broad spectrum of events, but also focussed festivals at other times of the year. We could take a leaf from Cheltenham’s book and drawn them together as The Lincoln Festivals.
Published in the Lincolnshire Echo of 4 June 2015
The Festivals in the Lincoln calendar, for example the Book Festival, The Chamber Music Festival and Frequency, are well supported, of good quality and greatly enjoyed. This year a number of different events are being brought together around the Magna Carta weekend and the Magna Carta celebrations more generally. These embrace film and beer as well as street entertainment and offerings for big outdoor audiences at the Castle.
The Drill Hall plays its part in the existing festivals and also in the Magna Carta events. For the weekend itself, we act as ‘book ends’ with dance at the beginning and music at the end, and quite a bit in the middle as well. The Dance, a piece entitled Refugees of the Septic Heart from Tom Dale productions, is a great example of how to offer an alternative view. In the early discussion about the commemorations of the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta, I became worried that it might focus too much on the historical event or just attract ‘establishment’ celebrations.
Tom Dale’s piece is distinctly alternative, it questions established values, in many ways it does what the founding fathers of America believed Magna Carta did; it stands up to those who seek to exercise power. Specifically it explores how the power of money is abused. It does this with dance but also with digital imagery and music. It is a first for Lincoln and one to be proud of since, having been a hit at the Edinburgh fringe, the production will next be performed in Hong Kong.
The music at the end of the Magna Carta weekend is quite different and will be the result of Sinfonia Viva working with local schools and the creative efforts of the children.
These two events demonstrate something of what the Drill Hall is about, giving space to new and adventurous work and being a place where Lincoln people can participate in performance. Of course the Drill Hall is about more than this; its role is to be there for a whole range of Lincoln communities and offer, perhaps not something for everyone, but certainly a variety of performance that will be enjoyed by most.
So, back to the question of the Festival, do we want a big Lincoln Festival? It would give audiences the chance to experience a number of different forms of performance: theatre, film, dance, music and literature. It could be built round a theme, as the Magna Carta weekend is. It could say something about what is special about Lincoln: a vibrant modern city in an historical setting. Importantly, it could give space for home grown talent to perform.
Well, perhaps the Magna Carta weekend will be a good taster. My instinct is that we will want a bit of both. Certainly something big that brings the city together and offers a broad spectrum of events, but also focussed festivals at other times of the year. We could take a leaf from Cheltenham’s book and drawn them together as The Lincoln Festivals.
Tuesday, 9 June 2015
What is Magna Carta?
It could so easily have been lost.
For ten short weeks in the summer of 1215, a charter carrying King John’s seal tied his hands. He hated it with a passion; it was outrageous that the King’s power should be limited, that he should be answerable to his barons. The hate was so strong that he went cap in hand to the Pope to have it annulled, to be as if it had never happened.
The charter, on a single sheet of parchment which now sits in Lincoln Castle, was probably written out by the clerk to the Bishop of Lincoln, an office, the modern equivalent of which, I held from 1996 to 2003. In September 1215 the charter had become worthless and so I guess many Bishops’ clerks, for copies of the charter had been made for all Bishops, would just have discarded them. The clerk to the Bishop of Lincoln didn’t.
Why?
The charter would have taken a great deal of careful writing out - some 3,500 perfectly crafted words. The clerk, though, may well have studied at the medieval ‘University’ of Lincoln, then based at Lincoln Cathedral and by many accounts as well regarded as Oxford or Cambridge. He would have been following in the footsteps of another clerk, Stephen Langton, who there studied books about the power of Kings and who later, as Archbishop of Canterbury, had a big influence over the drafting of the charter. In the 12th century power was the hot topic; people from all parts of Europe were asking questions about power: how to stop it being abused, how to limit it, how to make the powerful accountable. The books Langton may have studied are still in the Cathedral Library.
So the clerk to the Bishop of Lincoln would have known that the annulled charter was truly important and must at all costs be kept.
How right he was.
Only two years later after John’s death at Newark, his infant son, then King Henry III, re-issued the charter alongside a smaller charter limiting his powers over the great forests of England. The 1215 charter, because it was bigger, became known as Magna Carta, and the smaller as The Charter of the Forest. Lincoln Castle is the only place where they can be seen together.
Magna Carta was re-issued in 1225 and then in 1297. It became the foundation of limits on the power of the King.
The short film you will see at Lincoln Castle traces the influence of Magna Carta through the Peasants Revolt of 1381, to King James I who asserted that he was King by Divine Right, to the Bill of Rights of 1689 when William and Mary came to the throne at Parliament’s invitation, right through to the growth of parliamentary democracy. In America and elsewhere Magna Carta was taken into the heart of their constitutions as standing up to the power of Kings. It is still quoted in American courts.
You will see Magna Carta in a darkened room; there is a sense of awe. Absolutely right!
This piece can also be found on the Visit Lincoln Blog
Phil Hamlyn Williams is a writer and his blog may be found at www.philwilliamswriter.co.uk
For ten short weeks in the summer of 1215, a charter carrying King John’s seal tied his hands. He hated it with a passion; it was outrageous that the King’s power should be limited, that he should be answerable to his barons. The hate was so strong that he went cap in hand to the Pope to have it annulled, to be as if it had never happened.
The charter, on a single sheet of parchment which now sits in Lincoln Castle, was probably written out by the clerk to the Bishop of Lincoln, an office, the modern equivalent of which, I held from 1996 to 2003. In September 1215 the charter had become worthless and so I guess many Bishops’ clerks, for copies of the charter had been made for all Bishops, would just have discarded them. The clerk to the Bishop of Lincoln didn’t.
Why?
The charter would have taken a great deal of careful writing out - some 3,500 perfectly crafted words. The clerk, though, may well have studied at the medieval ‘University’ of Lincoln, then based at Lincoln Cathedral and by many accounts as well regarded as Oxford or Cambridge. He would have been following in the footsteps of another clerk, Stephen Langton, who there studied books about the power of Kings and who later, as Archbishop of Canterbury, had a big influence over the drafting of the charter. In the 12th century power was the hot topic; people from all parts of Europe were asking questions about power: how to stop it being abused, how to limit it, how to make the powerful accountable. The books Langton may have studied are still in the Cathedral Library.
So the clerk to the Bishop of Lincoln would have known that the annulled charter was truly important and must at all costs be kept.
How right he was.
Only two years later after John’s death at Newark, his infant son, then King Henry III, re-issued the charter alongside a smaller charter limiting his powers over the great forests of England. The 1215 charter, because it was bigger, became known as Magna Carta, and the smaller as The Charter of the Forest. Lincoln Castle is the only place where they can be seen together.
Magna Carta was re-issued in 1225 and then in 1297. It became the foundation of limits on the power of the King.
The short film you will see at Lincoln Castle traces the influence of Magna Carta through the Peasants Revolt of 1381, to King James I who asserted that he was King by Divine Right, to the Bill of Rights of 1689 when William and Mary came to the throne at Parliament’s invitation, right through to the growth of parliamentary democracy. In America and elsewhere Magna Carta was taken into the heart of their constitutions as standing up to the power of Kings. It is still quoted in American courts.
You will see Magna Carta in a darkened room; there is a sense of awe. Absolutely right!
This piece can also be found on the Visit Lincoln Blog
Phil Hamlyn Williams is a writer and his blog may be found at www.philwilliamswriter.co.uk
Magna Carta at the Library of Congress in Washington USA
Thursday, 30 April 2015
We need to get out more!
The Lincolnshire Echo of 30 April 2015 published the following piece I wrote for them.
Is it just me, or is it really difficult to extract myself from my armchair and the evening’s television and actually go out?
A year ago, as I write this, I was Chief Executive at Lincoln Cathedral, a job not without its demands and certainly, if I did go out, it wouldn’t be often and would probably be to the big cathedral concerts. I shall probably never forget the standing ovation that met the cathedral choir’s performance of Messiah in 2012, or indeed The Halle and Vaughan Williams Pastoral Symphony. What I didn’t realise was how much else there was around, how different it was and how brilliant it is.
Last summer as I was beginning work on my book, a friend showed me an advertisement sent out by the Drill Hall for a new chair of trustees. I didn’t think too much about it. Over the weeks ideas would come into my mind and I began to think, ‘I could do that!’ So, I applied, was interviewed and then appointed about six months ago.
In the meantime I had been to two quite different performances. Literature at Lunchtime with Dr Jane Mackay, and Hamlet. I knew Dr Mackay from my time working in Leicester. It was familiar, rich in content and thoroughly enjoyable. Then Hamlet. One of my favourite plays, but one I had only seen at the Old Vic with top line actors. What would it be like? It was billed as ‘abbreviated’ and ‘different’. Not many people were there. Had I made a mistake? Not at all, this was a production of great energy that got to the heart of Shakespeare’s play. I was taken by surprise.
I then attended The Last Post, surely Lincoln at its best: a true community effort that told a Lincoln story well and to great effect. A great deal of hard work, I know, but I hope for more.
My granddaughters’ faces at the pantomime said it all. But then came the question, ‘but is it art?’ Of course, it’s art; it takes immense skill in writing and acting to keep children, and adults, engaged for that length of time.
So far, so good. There were then three performances that I would never have gone to had I not ‘been on duty’. Broke, a play about the burden of debt; Circus Geeks, a show by jugglers and Sinfonia Viva with a programme of well known music.
You will by now have guessed that I enjoyed them, my question is, ‘why?’
One of the joys of live performance is that you are in the same space. There can be eye contact. It won’t and indeed can’t be the same each time. The audience may applaud at the wrong time, a piece may find a whole new energy; things may go wrong. I think that more than anything the energy of performance is contagious, perhaps especially in a relatively small space. This energy doesn’t evaporate, I come away with a bounce in my walk and a brain positively buzzing.
Lincoln is greatly blessed by live performance. Of course, it isn’t just the Drill Hall. LPAC has a great programme. It is working with the Drill Hall over Easter with the Eastival Festival for families with young children. The cathedral puts on large concerts with great professionalism. The newly opened Castle has an exciting programme over the summer. The Collection offers much; for me the Book Festival in September will be the highlight. The Lincolnshire One Venues offer programmes of professional work alongside that locally produced, and a great deal for children and young people right across the county. The Magna Carta weekend in June will see the Lincoln based venues coming together for a weekend of huge variety.
I’m going to get out more, how about you?
Published by the Lincolnshire Echo on 30 April 2015
Is it just me, or is it really difficult to extract myself from my armchair and the evening’s television and actually go out?
A year ago, as I write this, I was Chief Executive at Lincoln Cathedral, a job not without its demands and certainly, if I did go out, it wouldn’t be often and would probably be to the big cathedral concerts. I shall probably never forget the standing ovation that met the cathedral choir’s performance of Messiah in 2012, or indeed The Halle and Vaughan Williams Pastoral Symphony. What I didn’t realise was how much else there was around, how different it was and how brilliant it is.
Last summer as I was beginning work on my book, a friend showed me an advertisement sent out by the Drill Hall for a new chair of trustees. I didn’t think too much about it. Over the weeks ideas would come into my mind and I began to think, ‘I could do that!’ So, I applied, was interviewed and then appointed about six months ago.
In the meantime I had been to two quite different performances. Literature at Lunchtime with Dr Jane Mackay, and Hamlet. I knew Dr Mackay from my time working in Leicester. It was familiar, rich in content and thoroughly enjoyable. Then Hamlet. One of my favourite plays, but one I had only seen at the Old Vic with top line actors. What would it be like? It was billed as ‘abbreviated’ and ‘different’. Not many people were there. Had I made a mistake? Not at all, this was a production of great energy that got to the heart of Shakespeare’s play. I was taken by surprise.
I then attended The Last Post, surely Lincoln at its best: a true community effort that told a Lincoln story well and to great effect. A great deal of hard work, I know, but I hope for more.
My granddaughters’ faces at the pantomime said it all. But then came the question, ‘but is it art?’ Of course, it’s art; it takes immense skill in writing and acting to keep children, and adults, engaged for that length of time.
So far, so good. There were then three performances that I would never have gone to had I not ‘been on duty’. Broke, a play about the burden of debt; Circus Geeks, a show by jugglers and Sinfonia Viva with a programme of well known music.
You will by now have guessed that I enjoyed them, my question is, ‘why?’
One of the joys of live performance is that you are in the same space. There can be eye contact. It won’t and indeed can’t be the same each time. The audience may applaud at the wrong time, a piece may find a whole new energy; things may go wrong. I think that more than anything the energy of performance is contagious, perhaps especially in a relatively small space. This energy doesn’t evaporate, I come away with a bounce in my walk and a brain positively buzzing.
Lincoln is greatly blessed by live performance. Of course, it isn’t just the Drill Hall. LPAC has a great programme. It is working with the Drill Hall over Easter with the Eastival Festival for families with young children. The cathedral puts on large concerts with great professionalism. The newly opened Castle has an exciting programme over the summer. The Collection offers much; for me the Book Festival in September will be the highlight. The Lincolnshire One Venues offer programmes of professional work alongside that locally produced, and a great deal for children and young people right across the county. The Magna Carta weekend in June will see the Lincoln based venues coming together for a weekend of huge variety.
I’m going to get out more, how about you?
Monday, 30 March 2015
Good Friday and the abuse of power
Magna Carta has been taken to the heart of freedom loving people across the globe. Most recently the UK Supreme Court decided in favour of the publication of letters by Prince Charles written to ministers. Whatever the merits of the letters themselves, it was a timely reminder that no one is above the law. This is the essence of what Magna Carta has come to be about. It seeks to control the way in which power is exercised by those who hold it.
I recently read a wonderful little book by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, on St Mark’s gospel in which he argues that Jesus was the victim of abused power. Good Friday is the day the Christian Church remembers the execution of Jesus at the hands of the Roman authorities. He was a man who could have so easily stirred up trouble and so history sees Pilate, the Roman governor, as pragmatically justified in what he did.
Take a step back though, and power is there abused time after time. A man is ratted on by one of his mates who had been put up to it by envious men in authority. Once in the hands of these men, it is the world gone mad. The accusers can’t even lie consistently. The man is caught in a nightmare; the judge is the accuser and so the only certainty is that he will be condemned.
I remember a TV play some years ago with the wonderful Richard Griffiths playing William Beausire a British stockbroker with dual British and Chilean nationality, abducted while in transit in Buenos Aires airport in November 1974. He is taken to a torture centre in Chile and never seen since. He was among the list of people deemed disappeared under the Pinochet regime. He was an innocent bystander. Today this is the pattern of life for many powerless people in countries like Mexico; they are at the mercy of the gangs who weald power.
Back to the events in Jerusalem two millennia ago, the religious authorities hand the man over to the secular governor who finds himself caught in the erie space between right and wrong. He seems to know that the man is innocent of any offence, but he is equally clear that forces are bubbling way underneath the surface sufficiently vigorously for him to be certain of trouble. He is desperate to be let of the hook, to be saved from choosing between right and chaos. He hands the man, or rather his destiny, to the crowd who are up for anything having be whipped into a frenzy by the religious men. The crowd demands crucifixion. The man is doomed. The crowd disperse.
False accusation, men giving way to pressure, the innocent caught in a world of madness where right has been blown out of the window; is this an inevitable part of being human? It works its way up from a seemingly unimportant abuse perhaps in the workplace to those falsely accused and executed. It matters.
I recently read a wonderful little book by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, on St Mark’s gospel in which he argues that Jesus was the victim of abused power. Good Friday is the day the Christian Church remembers the execution of Jesus at the hands of the Roman authorities. He was a man who could have so easily stirred up trouble and so history sees Pilate, the Roman governor, as pragmatically justified in what he did.
Take a step back though, and power is there abused time after time. A man is ratted on by one of his mates who had been put up to it by envious men in authority. Once in the hands of these men, it is the world gone mad. The accusers can’t even lie consistently. The man is caught in a nightmare; the judge is the accuser and so the only certainty is that he will be condemned.
I remember a TV play some years ago with the wonderful Richard Griffiths playing William Beausire a British stockbroker with dual British and Chilean nationality, abducted while in transit in Buenos Aires airport in November 1974. He is taken to a torture centre in Chile and never seen since. He was among the list of people deemed disappeared under the Pinochet regime. He was an innocent bystander. Today this is the pattern of life for many powerless people in countries like Mexico; they are at the mercy of the gangs who weald power.
Back to the events in Jerusalem two millennia ago, the religious authorities hand the man over to the secular governor who finds himself caught in the erie space between right and wrong. He seems to know that the man is innocent of any offence, but he is equally clear that forces are bubbling way underneath the surface sufficiently vigorously for him to be certain of trouble. He is desperate to be let of the hook, to be saved from choosing between right and chaos. He hands the man, or rather his destiny, to the crowd who are up for anything having be whipped into a frenzy by the religious men. The crowd demands crucifixion. The man is doomed. The crowd disperse.
False accusation, men giving way to pressure, the innocent caught in a world of madness where right has been blown out of the window; is this an inevitable part of being human? It works its way up from a seemingly unimportant abuse perhaps in the workplace to those falsely accused and executed. It matters.
Saturday, 28 February 2015
Security Services flawed tactics
The Guardian on 28 February 2015 published an article by David Davis MP, former shadow Home Secretary and champion of freedom. His critique was of the security services and their unwillingness to bring to justice those who threaten our democracy through terror. This struck a chord with the comments on Mr Davis made by historian Dr David Starkey in his excellent one hour TV programme on Magna Carta broadcast on the BBC in February 2015. Dr Starkey reminded the viewer that Davis has resigned over the issue of detention without trial. Davis sets a brave and difficult challenge. We want to be safe from terror, but this must be within the rule of law and not outside it.
In the same edition of the Guardian, Polly Toynbee invites readers to become Members of the Guardian to safeguard its independence. This has to be right. It is vital that a newspaper like the Guardian should be free to give space to a Conservative like Davis. I hope that an influential membership will never have power to call the shots over and against the editor.
In the same edition of the Guardian, Polly Toynbee invites readers to become Members of the Guardian to safeguard its independence. This has to be right. It is vital that a newspaper like the Guardian should be free to give space to a Conservative like Davis. I hope that an influential membership will never have power to call the shots over and against the editor.
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