Don't force Clive Lewis to take an oath he doesn't mean

If you force someone to swear an oath, you are not trying to change their mind but humiliating them.

It was, I believe, Conor Cruise O'Brien who said that, in his biography of Edmund Burke, thinking of the British Crown's treatment of the people of Ireland in the eighteenth century.

I thought of his point when I heard that Clive Lewis was being made to take his oath of allegiance to the king again because be omitted some words the first time.

It ought to be possible for MPs to be republicans, just is at possible for them to be atheists. MPs are given the option of affirming rather than swearing on a holy book, and everyone thinks that's right and proper.

Yet it took a long battle by Charles Bradlaugh, a Liberal MP from Northampton, to win the right to affirm.

Would those who have accused Lewis of "student politics" say the same of Bradlaugh?

What the authorities should do is devise a tweak to the oath, producing either one that every MP can take or a subtly different version that republicans can take.

There would be a row at first, but soon we would be congratulating ourselves on a typically British piece if pragmatism. And not long after that, we would imagine that it has always been like that.

Photo by Rwendland.

Bust of Charles Bradlaugh unveiled at Westminster

From the National Secular Society website, dated 2 November:

A newly commissioned portrait bust of Charles Bradlaugh has been unveiled in Portcullis House, at a reception attended by parliamentarians and members of the National Secular Society (NSS). 

Terry Sanderson, president of the NSS, said: "We're thrilled to have been instrumental in enabling this magnificent portrait bust of our founder Charles Bradlaugh at last to take his rightful place in the Palace of Westminster, and we thank all who donated to our fundraising efforts."

The portrait bust of Charles Bradlaugh was donated to the House of Commons by the National Secular Society, which Bradlaugh founded in 1866, and supported by very generous donations from our members and supporters.

The short BBC film above features the bust's sculptor, Suzie Zamit, talking about her creation.

For more about Bradlaugh, and a photo of his statue in the centre of Northampton, see a 2011 post on this blog.

Six of the Best 236

Charles Bradlaugh - a great
secularist

"When Mr Osborne sat down yesterday, he had pulled off quite a political coup – winning huge cheers from both Lib Dems and Conservatives, while leaving Labour looking wrong-footed and irrelevant." David Laws writes about the Budget for the Daily Telegraph.

Greg Mulholland, Lib Dem MP for Leeds North West, has tabled a parliamentary motion calling on the government to address the awarding of unwarranted bonuses and financial rewards in the pubs industry.

A noisy demonstration frightened constituents away from an advice surgery, complains John Hemming (Lib Dem MP for Birmingham Yardley).

Amy Goodman on TruthDig writes about the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Lawyers' Secular Society offers a history of secularism in the UK.

"Playing Martin Bashir to Amir’s Diana, Atherton’s questioning of the young bowler constituted less a searching cross-examination than a series of gentle prompts to allow Amir to tell his story in what turned out to resemble a soft-soap PR exercise designed specifically to aid in the young bowler’s rehabilitation." Leg Side Filth questions Michael Atherton's willingness to see the best in his interviewee Mohammad Amir, the Pakistani cricketer banned from the game for spot-fixing.

Book Review: A Guide to the Works of Art of the National Liberal Club

You can find this review in today's Liberal Democrat News.


A Guide to the Works of Art of the National Liberal Club, London (second edition)
Michael Meadowcroft
National Liberal Club, 2011

Designed by the great Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse and opened in 1887, the National Liberal Club is a work of art in itself. Gothic towers and pinnacles pierce the Whitehall sky: its wine cellar is formed from the remains of an attempt to build a railway under the Thames to Waterloo.

Between them are to be found portraits, busts and engravings that tell the story of the Club, of the Liberal Party and of British political radicalism in general. This elegant illustrated booklet by Michael Meadowcroft, the Club’s honorary librarian and a former MP for Leeds West, makes a fitting celebration of this collection. It is an expanded edition of one written by Veronica Herrington in 1997, and its indexes of artists and sitters make it easy to use. My only criticism is that the illustrations are not captioned.

Meadowcroft tells us that the art collection dates from the Club’s earliest days, when it was regularly offered busts and portraits (“more often than not of Mr Gladstone”). The result is a collection that is home to the Grand Old Man and to almost every prominent Liberal since. They range from wing-collared grandees of the party’s heyday to Paddy Ashdown, whose portrait is the only one to depict its subject in informal dress. (Among other recent Liberal leaders, Jo Grimond wears an academic gown over a suit and Sir David Steel appears to have chosen to be painted in the uniform of a Peruvian admiral.)

But the collection is not confined to Liberal leaders or even to Liberal members. There are portraits of radicals, such as William Cobbett and George Holyoake, who were never part of mainstream Liberalism but with whom the Club and its members were clearly in sympathy.

Perhaps high portraiture is less to modern taste, and in many ways the best painting in the book is a less formal study of Charles Bradlaugh, the atheist MP for Northampton, by Walter Sickert. Paul Temple’s recent painting of Sir Cyril Smith gets beyond its subject’s bulk to find his character and there is a stunning portrait of the young Violet Bonham-Carter by Sir William Orpen, though this turns out to be a modern copy.

Meadowcroft does not record what became of Orpen’s original, but a significant number of works have been lost since the collection’s apogeé in 1940. One reason is the 1941 air raid that destroyed the Club’s famous staircase, though fortunately the finest paintings had been sent for safekeeping to the home of the Cornish Liberal Isaac Foot. (A portrait of Asquith was less fortunate in 1910: suffragettes scrawled ‘Votes for Women’ across it in purple ink.)

Through all these vicissitudes the National Liberal Club remained more than an art gallery: it functioned as an important hub for Liberalism when the party was at its lowest ebb. In 1948 Sir John Simon, an eminent National Liberal and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, was asked to resign after speaking for the Conservative candidate in a by-election.

A further reminder of those days comes in the form of an illuminated address presented by the Club to Harry Willcock. Willcock, a Liberal parliamentary candidate, had refused to produce his identity card when stopped by the police in 1950. His actions led to abolition of identity cards two years later.

This address may be the least important item in the collection from an artistic point of view, but it is priceless from a political one.

"Bradlaugh for Northampton"

This statue of Charles Bradlaugh stands in the unlovely location of Abington Square, Northampton.

The inscription on the panel beneath it reads:

“THOROUGH.”

CHARLES BRADLAUGH

Born Sept, 26, 1833

Died Jany. 30, 1891

M.P. for Northampton 1880-1891

Four times elected to one

Parliament in vindication of

the rights of constituencies.

India, too, chose him as her

representative.

A sincere friend of the people,

his life was devoted to

progress, liberty, and justice.

Bradlaugh was an extraordinary figure - a freethinker and radical, as well as a Liberal. There is a brief note about him on the National Secular Society website, and a longer entry on Wikipedia:

In 1880 Bradlaugh was elected Member of Parliament for Northampton, and claimed the right to affirm (instead of taking the religious Oath of Allegiance), but this was denied. Lord Randolph Churchill roused the Conservatives by leading resistance to Bradlaugh. 

Bradlaugh subsequently offered to take the oath "as a matter of form". This offer, too, was rejected by the House. Because Members must take the oath before being allowed to take their seats, he effectively forfeited his seat in Parliament. He attempted to take his seat regardless and was arrested and briefly imprisoned in the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament. His seat fell vacant and a by-election was declared. Bradlaugh was re-elected by Northampton four times in succession as the dispute continued. Supporting Bradlaugh were William Ewart Gladstone, T. P. O'Connor and George Bernard Shaw as well as hundreds of thousands of people who signed a public petition. Opposing his right to sit were the Conservative Party, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other leading figures in the Church of England and Roman Catholic Church. 

On at least one occasion, Bradlaugh was escorted from the House by police officers. In 1883 he took his seat and voted three times before being fined £1,500 for voting illegally. A bill allowing him to affirm was defeated in Parliament. 

In 1886 Bradlaugh was finally allowed to take the oath, and did so at the risk of prosecution under the Parliamentary Oaths Act. Two years later, in 1888, he secured passage of a new Oaths Act, which enshrined into law the right of affirmation for members of both Houses

Around the other three faces of the plinth runs the words of the song "Bradlaugh for Northampton" - words by James Wilson, music by John Lowry.

I can find plenty of references to it on the web, but nowhere can I find the words. So, as my contribution to Bradlaugh scholarship, I have transcribed them from the photographs I took this morning.

As I did with the inscription, I have turned the block capitals of the original into more readable text. I hope I have got the puncuation right and - more importantly - I hope I have got the verses in the correct order.

Bradlaugh for Northampton

Electors of Northampton, work! The day will soon be here
When you will have to give your votes and give them without fear:
For freedom’s battle ne’er was won by coward in the past,
Nor can it ever be sustained by men who fear the blast.

Then toil, men toil in freedom’s cause
Rest not content with vain applause
Humanity needs better laws –
To win these we’ll send Bradlaugh!

‘Tis not to tread your churches down, nor chapels built by men.
Not hinder earnest worshippers on mountain or in glen;
But to give freedom to each thought that swells the brain of man.
Religious liberty for all, no state church is our plan.

‘Tis not to rob rich lords of land –oppress as they would you,
Nor property make insecure, to feed a lawless few;
But to make way for those to rise, who hard yet humbly toil,
And give to all some interest in nature’s gift, the soil.

Some cowards cry out “Heresy!” Beware! My fellow men. -
That cry’s been raised, so hist’ry says, ‘Gainst Britain’s noblest men.
Say, is he manly, is he true? Is he for justice strong?
And will he labour good to do? Then echo in your song –

We’ll toil. We’ll toil in freedom’s cause,
Nor rest content with vain applause,
But fight determined for just laws,
And make our member, Bradlaugh!