WHAT?
The Convention on Modern Liberty was a one day gathering of 1,500 people on Saturday 28 February 2009 at the Institute for Education in central London and hundreds more in the parallel regional and national meetings in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Glasgow and Manchester. It was sponsored by Rowntrees, openDemocracy, Liberty and the Guardian.
The main theatre hosted a plenary session in the morning with a panel of nationally distinguished speakers from across the political spectrum discussing “Citizens and the state: the crisis of liberty”. There were then two sets of eleven parallel sessions in the morning and afternoon each focused on a different question relating to Modern Liberty. Their panels were sponsored and organised by a wide range of interested organisations. There was a final plenary session in the main hall on “How do we secure modern liberty?” followed by an informal discussion of the day over drinks (see here for a full programme).
The regional and national events across the UK watched a webcast of the plenary sessions and hosted their own discussions. No2ID co-ordinated these in partnership with Unlock Democracy and Amnesty. There was an open invitation to others to hold their own meetings and events in the following weeks.
