News 28 Nov 2008

Taking Liberties at the party conferences

Curator Kristian Jensen (left) representing the Taking Liberties exhibition at the Labour Party Conference

 

 

British Library takes questions of liberty to the political parties

The British Library held three panel debates at each of this year's political party conferences, in partnership with human rights organisation Liberty.

All three proved to be very lively, and covered a broad range of issues in a short space of time.

The events promoted the Taking Liberties exhibition to hundreds of delegates over the conference season.

The panel line-up at all three conferences included figures such as Lord Clement-Jones, Liberal Democrat speaker on Culture, Media and Sport (second from left, picture above right); Professor Francesca Klug OBE, London School of Economics; Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty (picture, below); Independent and Evening Standard columnist Yasmin Alihbhai-Brown; shadow justice minister Edward Garnier MP; and justice minister Maria Eagle MP.

The Library was represented by Matthew Shaw at the Liberal Democrat party conference (picture above, far right); and by Kristian Jensen at the Labour and Conservative conferences (main picture, left).

Shaw and Jensen are both part of the curatorial team for the exhibition, and were able to put it into a context for their audiences, as well as highlighting some of the key exhibits and features.