Women dressed as suffragettes, including Tamsin Osmond (center left) rush toward the entrance of the Houses of Parliament in London, Oct 13, 2008
Exactly 100 years ago, more than 40 women were arrested in the ‘Suffragete Rush‘ as they attempted to enter The Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London. To mark this centenary, young women concerned with the lack of political action to tackle climate change organised and led a ‘Climate Rush‘ rally in Parliament Square, calling for “men and women alike” to stand together and support three key demands:
- No airport expansion.
- No new coal-fired power stations.
- The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.
It turned out – as expected – to be an interesting evening, although unlike 100 years ago none of the women managed to get into parliament and disrupt the proceedings there. You can read more about it – and see rather a lot of pictures – on My London Diary.
Inside the building, the upper house was debating one of our more repressive pieces of proposed legislation, the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2007-08, and threw out by a large majority to proposal to allow suspects to be detained for 42 days before charge. However this is only one of several extremely suspect provisions, and we can only hope that their Lord and Ladyships will also throw out the proposals for secret inquests and look very carefully at the other provisions of the bill when they return to it in the next few days.