Violations
of Rights in Britain Series 2 No.15
This year is the 75th
anniversary of the first women journalists officially
being allowed into the House of Commons. On 1 December
1919, two female journalists were allowed to sit in the
press gallery to cover one of the most momentous events in
British democracy this century; Nancy Astor arriving to
take her seat in the House of Commons as the first woman
MP. It was the result of a long, hard and often dangerous
struggle by thousands upon thousands of brave women and
men. Since the Great Reform Act of 1832 formally outlawed
women's right to vote at general elections, women have
been excluded as second class subjects. Today, the efforts
to gain equal treatment for women is a battle far from
won. For at the heart of our political system is the House
of Commons and it remains locked in the nineteenth
century.
Last April I was appointed
the first Political Editor of a major women's magazine.
For fifteen years I have
been working hard to widen democracy in the UK and other
countries to include women and men equally. In particular
I helped start the all-party 300 Group for women in
politics and public life. This group was formed in 1980
with the express aim of campaigning to get equal numbers
of male and female Members of Parliament.
The 300 Group devised such
activities as debates in committee rooms of the House of
Commons - on defence, international affairs, women and the
budget, and so on - weekends at Oxford on the Third World,
and annual three-day training/conference-cruises, as well
as innumerable extra gatherings in committee rooms of the
Palace of Westminster to hear relevant politicians from
home and overseas.
I wrote a paperback with a
Daily Mail sub-editor's tongue in cheek title Women
With X Appeal on the experiences and thoughts of 30
women in contemporary British politics, from the parish
pump to Westminster and Brussels. I have written features
on politics and politically related issues for most of
Britain's broadsheets and regional press. I have
interviewed literally hundreds of politicians, male and
female - including the then Chancellor John Major for the Sunday
Times - as well as the current speaker Betty
Boothroyd and her immediate predecessor Jack (now Lord)
Weatherill.
Last year, to examine
where Parliament stood on legislation the UK's 29 million
women still require, I developed the idea of the House of
Commons 'Week on Women', now picked up as an annual event
by the Fawcett Society.
I recount all this to show
that I am not a naive, inexperienced outsider to
Westminister. Indeed, I worked my political apprenticeship
in the late 1970s as a Parliamentary researcher in the
House of Commons and the House of Lords. I prepared
briefings and Parliamentary Questions for MPs and Peers on
a wide variety of topics, especially on the environment,
nuclear power, alternative energy sources, small business,
fisheries and Third World development - all issues of the
greatest pertinence still.
When the week long event
in parliament had been completed, Marcelle D'Argy Smith,
Editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, asked if I would
become its political editor and write regularly on
politics for its two and half million readers.
My brief is to write about
politics in a way that will engage women readers and
encourage them to take an active interest in democracy,
especially the two million or so readers in the 16 - 35
year old group. This was music to my ears. The Cosmo
'audience' is one which politicians urgently need to get
through to - and don't.
Last April, therefore, I
applied, on Cosmopolitan headed paper, to the
Serjeant at Arms' office for a 'photo identity pass' that
would allow me journalistic access to the Palace of
Westminster, to the press gallery and the lobbies.
I was promptly refused a
pass.
I did not expect a
"no".
Now, as so often happens
to all of us, something which started as an individual
matter - helping me to do the job I'm paid to do for Cosmopolitan's
readership - has become a larger matter, going even
deeper, like Alice in Wonderland, into just how arcane,
obsolete, secretive - and unaccountable - is the Palace of
Westminster.
I spoke about this to Mark
Fisher MP, promoter of the Right to Know Bill and a great
proponent of freedom of information. He said he felt it
was an issue of extending democracy; that I had an
important audience, who have a right to know about
parliament and its work. He suggested I find out if I
could appeal, which I did.
But first, the point about
the right to know is an important one. We should all
admire tremendously Britain's women's magazines -
magazines like Cosmopolitan, She, Good
Housekeeping, Elle, Woman, Woman's
Own, Marie Claire, Options and the
rest. Pick one up at a dentist's if need be. They do
sterling work, writing on matters too often overlooked by
a parliament 90% male. Economic and social issues crucial
to women, as well as human rights and some world affairs.
Women's magazines have
stunningly large readerships - millions upon millions
every month. Only mysognists could dismiss then as
unimportant.
I asked the Serjeant at
Arms how I could appeal against his decision to refuse me
a press pass. He said that I could try appealing to the
Administration Committee of the House of Commons. The
Administration Committee consists of seven members -
chaired by Labour MP Michael Martin, member for Glasgow
Springburn, four Conservatives (one woman - Marion Roe),
an Ulster Unionist; no Liberal Democrats, no Plaid Cmyru
or Scots Nats. The Committee Clerk is Mr K.J.Brown.
Starting in Spring of last
year I left telephone messages asking if Michael Martin
would be kind enough to call me back to explain the
procedures for appealing to his Committee for a press
pass. I wrote to him, including samples of features I had
written for The Times, The Guardian, The
Independent and women's magazines, including Cosmo.
I offered to visit him at the House of Commons to prove I
was a bona fide journalist and answer any questions they
might want to put to me.
The weeks and months
ticked past and I didn't hear from him. I left further
messages.
In my eighteen years being
in close touch with Parliament, Michael Martin was the
first MP who had not bothered either to call me back or
answer my letters or at the very least to get a secretary
or researcher to acknowledge my calls. Not once.
Finally in February this
year (1994) I received two short letters. The first dated
1 February was headed "The Administration
Committee".
- Dear Lesley Abdela,
Thank you for your
letter of 10th January in which you seek a meeting to
discuss the possibility of a press gallery Press Pass
being issued to you as the representative of
Cosmopolitan Magazine.
I would prefer to seek
the advice of the House authorities and my colleagues
on your submission and will be in touch again in due
course.
Yours sincerely
Michael Martin
Chairman
The second letter dated 17
February came from Peter Jennings, Deputy Serjeant at
Arms.
- Dear Lesley Abdela,
I have been asked to
write to you because your request for a Palace of
Westminster photo-identity pass in your capacity as
Political Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine was
considered by members of the Administration Commitee
at their meeting held on 15th February. I very much
regret to have to let you know that your request,
after careful consideration, was not agreed to.
With Kind Regards
Peter Jennings
Deputy Serjeant at Arms
I had not been given any
opportunity to appear before the Administration Committee.
I was given no reasons for the refusal. The responses from
the Administration Committee and the Serjeant at Arms
office when I asked for reasons for their refusal have
simply implied that they are not accountable to anyone.
Who do the functionaries
in the House of Commons think they are, if they think they
can just stop the representatives of millions of readers
following their proceedings?
In 1992, I was invited by
former Cabinet Minister Shirley Williams (now Baroness
Williams of Crosby) to be part-time consultant and trainer
on 'women and democracy' for Harvard University's Project
Liberty. Project Liberty is working to help build
democracies in the post-totalitarian nations of East and
Central Europe. We have already devised and run workshops
with other organisations such as the Prague Centre of
Independent Journalism, the British Council and locally
based groups in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and
Poland. Should I tell them in Eastern Europe about how the
House of Commons treats women magazine editors?
After the Jennings letter
I wrote again to Michael Martin and each of the
Administration Committee MPs.
On 2 March 1994 the Clerk
of the Administration Committee wrote to me as follows;
- Dear Ms Abdela,
The Chairman of the
Committee, Mr Michael Martin has asked me to thank you
for your latest letter to him dated 18 February and
has asked me to reply on behalf of himself and other
members of the commitee to whom I understand you have
also written.
I can confirm that
your latest representation to the Members of the
Committee was considered at their last meeting.
However, I regret to inform you that the Committee saw
no reason to change its original decision. It is not
usual practice for the Committee to explain its
decisions on these matters. However, I am sure that
your previous experience of the House will enable you
to understand the measures and constraints affecting
decisions of this nature.
KJ Brown.
Even re-reading this letter I
seethe with anger at its breathtaking arrogance. I have
spent most of my past fifteen years fighting for and
promoting democracy and a more open society. Yet
parliament is still allowed to be run in outrageously
undemocratic and secretive ways. What 'measures and
constraints'? As for my 'previous experience' this tells
me that the House of Commons has a long way to go.
Do I understand? Hell no!
It gets worse. I contacted
the Public Information Office, a first class service for
whom I always have the highest praise (I hope this
encomium doesn't sink them) to ask what rights I might
have in seeking a press pass as Political Editor of a
major magazine. The PIO told me that as a member of the
public I have no rights.
It seems a strange old
Mother of Parliaments where people working for tabloid
newspapers which publish intimate details of the sex lives
of politicians have photo-identity passes to come and go
freely, but someone working for a great women's magazine
is excluded from the very forum which has a crucial if
irresponsible say in women's lives.
"Good Lordie - if you
let one damned woman's magazine in, those others'll want
the same privilege!" I've heard. But this is surely
what we do want, and this is what we have been fighting
for.
Put my case aside, or
better still generalise it. Access to Parliament for the
great women's magazines will extend our democracy. We want
all the women's magazines to come and hear the House in
action as of right. This is one small way in which we
begin to change the culture of the House of Commons and
begin to demystify what goes on (to quote a cliché) in
the corridors of power.
The House of Commons
cannot continue to be run as a club for members only. Are
they afraid that if they let in people like me in we might
start asking questions about its working hours, its
archaic procedures and its unintelligible proceedings? Of
course they are - and they're right.
Who owns Parliament
anyway? We the people or a tiny cabal of self-important
and unaccountable public servants at Westminster? There do
seem to be murky and important implications hidden behind
this refusal to give a press pass to a daring women's
magazine.
© Lesley Abdela
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Revised: April 30, 2001
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