In 1647 to St Marys Putney! 360th anniversary of the Putney debates
champagnesocialist Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 02:13:46 PM GMT 
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The next two weeks mark the 360th anniversary of a series of debates that took place in St Marys Church Putney between the new model army and the levellers over the English constitution and who should have the right to vote etc. These marked an important step on the road towards (for men at least) universal suffrage, equality before the law, freedom of thought and the idea that the governments need the consent of the governed to rule.
To mark the anniversary there are a series of events occuring in the church - see http://www.putneydebates.com/ for information - including a debate on Friday 2 November entitled Whats wrong with British democracy? which wil be chaired by Shami Chakrabati of Liberty and feature speakers including Billy Bragg, Geoffry Robertson QC and Dan Hind, plus according to the Billy Bragg website (but not the putney debates one) historian Tristram Hunt
Tristram has written an article about this in the paper today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,2199576,00.html
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