Parliament Square Research Articles

Kaddish for Gaza

Controversy over the recital by young Jews in Parliament Square during May 2018 of Mourners’ Kaddish for Palestinians shot while trying to break through the border reflected a misunderstanding about the different ways Kaddish is used in Traditional and Progressive contexts. Mourners’ Kaddish is recited in Traditional settings to commemorate deceased relatives and more rarely other Jews. In Progressive circles it is read communally in unison, very occasionally also for non-Jews. This article questions the appropriateness of reciting Mourners’ Kaddish for the Gaza victims, none of whom were Jewish and whose intentions were uncertain. Instead, an act of text study could have been used to highlight moral ambiguity, followed by Kaddish de-Rabbanan, the traditional coda to a study session. This would have avoided offence to Muslims and to Jews, and have ensured that the act of reciting Kaddish refers in this case not to the dead but to the moral problems raised by their killing.

In My Name and the Name of All People Who Live in Misery: Rap in the Wake of Revolution in Tunisia and Egypt

Rap and mahragan were the sound of youths that demanded freedom and social justice in Tahrir Square and in Tunisia Parliament Square sit-ins during 2011. It may have been, not merely the soundtrack of the revolution, but a motivating factor in bringing people into the streets and reshaping their basic political subjectivity: a core process of any revolutionary change in a country’s social and political structures. On the one hand, rap and mahragan are used by young people as a way of calling into question the processes of marginalization. On the other hand, young people use it as a way of participating in public life. Despite its differences, from a mixed analysis using the data collected in the SAHWA project, both qualitative and quantitative, this article proves how rap and mahragan music scenes (re)produce informal spaces as an alternative to their social marginalization and positioned them into Tunisian and Egyptian political arenas in different places according to environmental political dialectics.

Parliament Square

Parliament Square is an uncertain play for uncertain times. It was first staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester in October 2017 amidst unstable and divided years for the United Kingdom, with two general elections and the Brexit referendum. The play centers on Kat, a young woman who gets up one morning, leaves her husband and young daughter behind and travels to London to commit an extreme act of political protest. The scene excerpted here comes at the end of the first act, as Kat arrives in Parliament Square. Her dueling consciousness flits between resolve and uncertainty about the action she's about to take.

Protest objects: bricolage, performance and counter-archaeology

ABSTRACTIn this article we analyse the Occupy Democracy demonstration that took place in Parliament Square in the autumn of 2014 and the ‘Disobedient Objects’ exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum 2014–15. We develop a counter-archaeological analysis of these events on the one hand through reflection on previous archaeological studies of protest sites and the new heritage paradigm and on the other through an exploration of bricolage and performance to unpack the complex materialities of these assemblages of people, places and objects.

We have made history, but what about our future?

We have made history, but what about our future?

Penalty Clauses in the Supreme Court: A Legitimately Interesting Decision?

The joint appeals in Cavendish Square Holdings v El Makdessi and Beavis v ParkingEye 1 offered the UK Supreme Court its first opportunity – since moving across Parliament Square – to consider the penalty doctrine. The exercise of judicial control over contractually stipulated remedies has long been controversial and the joint appeals presented an opportunity either to modernise the doctrine's principles or to repudiate it entirely from English law.

Mapping the ‘End Austerity Now’ protest day in Central London using a 3D Twitter density grid

The mapping and spatial analysis of social media data can show the dynamics of activities in urban space, such as protest events. This work focuses on the spatial relationship between the density of geo-tagged tweets and a large anti-government protest in London on 20 June 2015. The tweets are aggregated to hexagonal grid cells to visualize activity density in different Central London areas. The results of the mapping illustrate very high densities at the beginning and endpoints of the protest (the Bank of England and Parliament Square). Additionally, there are high tweet densities in the West End and Bank than in other neighbouring areas.

Parliament Square: The Making of a Political Space

Parliament Square has only infrequently been the subject of academic study, despite its location adjacent to the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey and the Supreme Court. Study has been mainly by architectural and art historians concerned with its development in terms of design, artistic conception, ceremonial role and metropolitan planning. This article in contrast presents a political history of a public space originally designed by the Victorians to exalt the British parliamentary system. The eleven monumental additions to the Square have performed their artistic, historical and educative functions primarily as part of a political process. After the nineteenth-century elevation of political ‘heroes’, public attitudes to politicians shifted in the wake of the First World War and the process of memorialisation in the twentieth century was rather different. Monuments were rarely added, usually in special circumstances and often amidst controversy. A tension has since developed in recent decades between the Square's renewed monumental function and a new politicisation that responds to the state-sanctioned space by using it as the focus of protest against the system it exalts.

The Media and the UK Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is understandably pleased with the “close relationship with media organisations”1 that its five-person communications team has built up over the past couple of years. In the Court’s annual report for 2010/11, it describes two television documentaries broadcast on minority channels as the “highlight of this year”.2 These programmes apparently went down well with members of the public who contacted Court staff after transmission—though neither generated any particular news coverage. But that is hardly a novelty; there has been very little coverage of the Court in its first two years or so. Though many of its rulings have been reported in the press and some have even made their way onto the television bulletins, it has not yet been asked to decide the sort of ‘right-to-life’ case that might attract wide public attention. There is little interest in newly-appointed judges. For all the visitors who pop in to use the only free toilets on Parliament Square, the Court remains largely unknown to the British public. Perhaps that explains why it seized on the Julian Assange case quite so enthusiastically, declaring in December 2011 that theWikileaks founder would not only be granted permission to appeal against extradition but also that his case would be heard little more than a month later by seven justices instead of the normal five, “given the great public importance of the issue raised”.3 That issue—which had never struck the law lords as of any importance before—was whether a state could designate a prosecutor as a “judicial authority” within the meaning of the Extradition Act 2003. It would certainly be of great public importance if the Supreme Court were now to tell states that they could not. But what should we read into the decision to assemble a panel of

At the Heart of Justice: the Library at the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

AbstractThe new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which heard its first case in October 2009, sits at the apex of the UK's justice systems. Located in the painstakingly restored Grade II Listed Middlesex Guildhall in Parliament Square, it will be the highest appeal court in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and for civil cases in Scotland. Jenny Rowe, Chief Executive of the Court, reveals how the new Justices' Library is at the heart of this landmark building.

"All the Men of Great Affairs": The Barnard Statue, Manchester Liberalism, and Lincoln Intellectual History

The years immediately following World War I saw the unveiling of two significant statues of Abraham Lincoln in Britain. The first, which took place in Platt Fields, Manchester, in September 1919, presented a replica of George Grey Barnard’s controversial depiction of a distinctly pre-presidential Lincoln, the original of which had been presented to the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, two years earlier (see Figures 1 and 2). Barnard’s Lincoln was a stomach-clutching, somewhat anemic looking figure who, according to Lord Charnwood, the British author of the preeminent Lincoln biography of the age, resembled nothing so much as “a minor poet who had gone under” (qtd in Moffat 117). The second ceremony took place the following summer in Parliament Square, Westminster, where Prime Minister David Lloyd George, himself something of a Lincoln obsessive, accepted Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s second cast of the by then famous standing figure (see Figure 3), the original of which had been unveiled in Chicago in 1887. Saint-Gaudens’s solemn, lapel-clutching statesman mounted on a much grander base and situated at the very heart of the imperial capital, was in marked contrast to the scruffy frontier everyman tucked away in the industrial provinces. How the Barnard statue came to find a home in Manchester is an interesting tale, one directly related to the choice of the Saint-Gaudens’s for the Westminster site. These decisions, however, made collectively by various Anglo-American art, business, civic, and political establishments, shed light on more

‘Hybrid Bills’ and Human Rights: The Parliament Square Litigation 2002–2007

This article examines the statutory provisions which prohibit unauthorised demonstrations in the vicinity of Parliament Square. The legal position of the pre-existing demonstrator (Mr Brian Haw) is traced back to the decision of Gray J in Westminster City Council v Haw (2002). This case held that Mr Haw had made his home on part of the pavement in Parliament Square and Gray J rejected, one by one, every legal argument which Westminster City Council had used against Haw (such as that he was ‘obstructing’ the highway, or ‘sleeping rough’, or displaying unauthorised advertisements). The decision of the Court of Appeal in R (Haw) v Home Secretary (2006) (which considered the subsequent statutory ban on unauthorised demonstrations) is analysed in the light of the question whether or not that legislation took away Mr Haw’s property rights (and rights under the European Convention of Human Rights) without the payment of compensation. The conclusion is reached that the statutory ban on demonstrations (contained in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 and delegated legislation made under it) was ‘hybrid’ in so far as it purported to apply to Mr Haw. In the light of the fact that the ‘hybrid bill’ procedure was not used the article concludes that the Court of Appeal was wrong to interpret the 2005 legislation as if it came into force on the midnight hour of 30 June/1 July 2005 and criminalised the conduct of Haw- a person who could not obtain prior authorisation before starting his demonstration in 2001. Although this article sympathises with the view of the common law that the right of the public to use the highway should be restricted to a right to pass and re-pass for all proper purposes, it concludes that more important property rights than those represented by Mr Haw (including the rights of corporations) will be put at risk if Parliament and the courts forget the warning of the late Professor Christopher Hughes: that “‘the rule of formal generality’ and ‘equality before the law’ is preserved by the distinction between Public and Private Bills.”

An Interview with Mark Wallinger

Mark Wallinger has recreated peace campaigner Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest for a dramatic new installation at Tate Britain. Running along the full length of the Duveen Galleries, State Britain consists of a meticulous reconstruction of over 600 weather-beaten banners, photographs, peace flags and messages from well-wishers that have been amassed by Haw over the past five years. Faithful in every detail, each section of Brian Haw’s peace camp from the makeshift tarpaulin shelter and tea-making area to the profusion of hand-painted placards and teddy bears wearing peace-slogan t-shirts has been painstakingly sourced and replicated for the display. Brian Haw began his protest against the economic sanction in Iraq in June 2001, and has remained opposite the Palace of Westminster ever since. On 23 May 2006, following the passing by Parliament of the “Serious Organised Crime and Police Act” prohibiting unauthorised demonstrations within a one kilometer radius of Parliament Square, the majority of Haw’s protest was removed. Taken literally, the edge of this exclusion zone bisects Tate Britain. Wallinger has marked a line on the floor of the galleries throughout the building, positioning State Britain half inside and half outside the border. In bringing a reconstruction of Haw’s protest before curtailment back into the public domain, Wallinger raises challenging questions about issues of freedom of expression and the erosion of civil liberties in Britain today.

After Seattle

On May Day 2000 I was at the demonstrations in Parliament Square, London. Reclaim the Streets had organized a Guerrilla Gardening spectacle: dig up the lawn in the center of the Square and plant in protest against capitalism.

Hospital Infection Society Conference, London 1994

The Third Conference of The Hospital Infection Society was held in the facilities of the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre close to Parliament Square London, from the 4-8 September, 1994.

Audio visual aids

The Video Visualiser provides instant projection of any visual information on to a television monitor or video screen without advance preparation, which offers a professional alternative to the traditional overhead projector. Providing total flexibility of presentation, it is a portable system which can be set up quickly to show a high quality image in full colour from any visual source — text, graphics, diagrams, photographs or even three‐dimensional objects — without preparation of elaborate foils, transparencies or slides. Details are available from Green Dragon Vaults, Parliament Square, Hertford SG14 1EW. Tel: 0992 581086.

A star is born: how a new political lobby might change the face of women's politics

‘We have lived through historic days and perhaps we are turning over a new page in the history of the women's movement,’ said Fausta desHormes, head of the European Commission's Women's Information Service. She was speaking in the closing moments of the Fourth Colloquium of European Women's Organizations, arranged by the EEC and hosted by the Fawcett Society, the first to be held in Britain. The conference attracted women from all the member nations, between them representing 50 million other women, to the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre on Parliament Square in London in November 1987, and the event which inspired Fausta desHormes' comment was a resolution calling for a new lobby for women's organizations.

Parliament vigil for lambeth nurses.

Nurses at St Thomas' Hospital are continuing their campaign against the closure of 137beds, with a week-long vigil outside the Houses of Parliament. Working in shifts of three, nurses stood in Parliament Square each day from 10am until midnight to draw attention to their concern over patient care.

Universities and Polytechnics in Africa. The Twelfth Lugard Memorial Lecture

Opening ParagraphMay I say first how much I appreciate the compliment which you paid me when you invited me to address the International African Institute on this, the occasion of the twelfth Lugard Memorial Lecture. I am proud to be one of those to whom Dame Margery Perham referred in the first Lugard Memorial Lecture, one of those who knew Lord Lugard in his later years. As a young civil servant I was the administrative secretary of the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, of which Lord Lugard was a member. As a kind of extension of my duties, I went to Africa as the secretary of Lord De La Warr's commission on higher education in East Africa. That commission's terms of reference charged it to work out a scheme for setting up a university college in Uganda, and of course Lord Lugard was interested because he had played such a leading part in bringing Uganda into the empire—first in commanding the military expedition and thereafter in conducting the campaign in Britain which persuaded Mr. Gladstone's government to proclaim the protectorate. Shortly after I returned from Uganda to London, I was walking in Whitehall when I saw Lord Lugard coming towards me—walking the length of Whitehall from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square although at that time he was 79 years of age. I wore a hat in those days, and in accordance with the civilized manners which young people then endeavoured to preserve, I raised it. To my surprise Lord Lugard recognized me, stopped me, and asked me to tell him about the commission and what it was likely to recommend. The conversation left me with a lively appreciation of Lord Lugard's great personal interest in education in Africa. If we could evoke, as Hubert Deschamps evoked when he pronounced the eighth Lugard Memorial Lecture, ‘cette ombre auguste qui nous est chère’, I think that the august shade would be very willing that this memorial hour should be devoted to a discussion of educational problems.

TheŞeriatas a political slogan — or the ‘incident of the 31stMart’

streaming, unaccompanied by their officers, towards the At Meydanl (in former days the Byzantine Hippodrome) and were concentrating in front of the Parliament building near Aya Sofya. The great square was thronged with soldiers, civilians, students of medreses (softas) and hocas, all of whom were laying siege to the Parliament building. The first reports telegraphed to the homes of the Grand Vizier and the Minister of War, as well as to the Yildiz Palace, contained the information that soldiers of the First Corps, aided by soldiers of the Light Infantry Battalions of the Third Corps (avct), had arrested their officers and murdered several of them, and were closing in on the Parliament and uttering the cry: 'We want $eriat!' The unwanted spectacle of mutinous soldiers under the command of N.C.O.s and a small number of elderly, bearded officers, caused fear and alarm: did it portend the downfall of the constitutional regime, upon which so many hopes had been placed? Who was behind the mutineers and who was organizing them?' The Ottoman Government met hurriedly at the Sublime Porte. The Commander of the First Corps was urgently summoned to the Ministry of War with a view to organizing a force loyal to the Government that would be capable of nipping the revolt in the bud.2 Members of Parliament who hastened to the scene found themselves surrounded, with the rebels pressing against them. It looked as though the Government had lost control of the situation. The repeated appeals of the Commander of the First Corps, who was asking for authority to suppress the revolt by force, met with no response. From the telegraph office at the Yildiz came instructions to get in touch with the rebels and find out what they wanted, but to avoid using force.3 The rebels had a list of the leading statesmen belonging to the Committee of Union and Progress whom they wished to kill. They even ransacked the offices of the Young Turk newspapers (3ura-yt iummet and Tanin) and set fire to them. The leaders of the Young Turks hid in order to save their lives. The President of the Parliament, Ahmed Riza, the VicePresident, Talat Bey, the Deputy Cavid and the journalist Huseyin Cahid all disappeared.4 The corridors of the Parliament building were full of armed soldiers headed by Hoca Rasim Efendi of the Bayezid Mosque. The $eyhilisldm, who was summoned to the Parliament Square to parley with the mutineers, returned with a list of their demands. These were as follows: