Fellow anoraks...and bearded academics....
(Dr Evan Harris addressing last Saturday’s Take Back Parliament rally in Westminster.)
To be more cynical the crowd was disillusioned Lib Dem and Green Party supporters combined with those of us who are just intrinsically anti-Tory. Add a few anti-establishment protestors and you have a typical leftie political rally.
Only it wasn’t like that at all. Save for a few anti-Cameron banners this wasn’t about party politics. Indeed, politics as we have come to know it wasn’t the issue either. The broader principle of true democracy and representative politics was at the heart of last week's protest, campaigning for fair votes now.
This was, as one of the speakers pointed out, a CLAIM. A claim for fairness. An assertion of right.
I suspect that many of us at Westminster last week see this as a no-brainer.
But, as the humour of Evan Harris only really highlighted, this issue isn’t a straightforward one to explain, no matter how simple it was to all of us there.
But it is a point worth making, worth being passionate about and for that I thank Guy Aitchison and all involved in the organising of the event.
We have a chance to make this happen. This is only the start.
