:00:34. > :00:42.100 years ago when women battle to win the vote in the UK, this place
:00:43. > :00:45.was on the front line. Campaigners known as suffragists had been
:00:46. > :00:52.fighting for decades to secure the vote, but to no avail. So one group
:00:53. > :00:57.decided to take direct action. The women's social and political union
:00:58. > :01:01.led by Emily Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel. Some of the
:01:02. > :01:07.women they inspired recalls those times for BBC documentary in 1968.
:01:08. > :01:18.About the only thing is a girl could do would be to become a nurse or
:01:19. > :01:23.governess. I was an art student. In South Kensington art school and
:01:24. > :01:26.enjoyed the art very much. What I was really interested in was
:01:27. > :01:32.changing social conditions and I realised they could not be done
:01:33. > :01:36.until women have the vote. I was very annoyed about the position, the
:01:37. > :01:41.difference between a boy and girl. Everybody wanted a boy. It's a boy
:01:42. > :01:48.and all of that. It irritated me enormously. When one grew up and saw
:01:49. > :01:52.the differences and opportunities boy 's and men had and women and
:01:53. > :01:58.girls had, that increase that feeling. To publicise their cause,
:01:59. > :02:02.the women staged demonstrations, smash windows, chained themselves to
:02:03. > :02:06.railings. The Daily Mail called them the suffragettes, a term of abuse
:02:07. > :02:12.that later came to define the campaign. A woman went to work, a
:02:13. > :02:15.husband out of work, he could come outside the factory take our money
:02:16. > :02:22.and spend it and she could not do anything. I was just gone 30. They
:02:23. > :02:26.said there is a suffragette around the corner, speaking and I went
:02:27. > :02:33.around the corner and thought to myself, this woman is talking sense.
:02:34. > :02:37.When I joined I happened to meet an open-air meeting and heard the
:02:38. > :02:42.Speaker said lunatics, criminals, paupers and women may not vote.
:02:43. > :02:46.Well, I had not joined before them, but my instincts had been that way
:02:47. > :02:51.but I joined and I was in the parade in almost no time after that. There
:02:52. > :02:57.was tremendous force around is for good and some people could not take
:02:58. > :03:04.it. I remember going on poster parades.
:03:05. > :03:12.They were charming within in it. They absolutely were smothered with
:03:13. > :03:16.eggs, rotten tomatoes, and you never saw anything like what we looks like
:03:17. > :03:20.at the end. The Palace of west and stir was the place of symbolism for
:03:21. > :03:25.the suffragettes. They had been denied the vote and would take their
:03:26. > :03:29.fight to Parliament. Women would just come into Parliament, as
:03:30. > :03:33.everybody was allowed, and ask to see an MP and would be shown into
:03:34. > :03:38.central lobby. While they were waiting, they would often leap up
:03:39. > :03:43.onto the seats and shout, votes for women, and blew whistles. It got to
:03:44. > :03:48.such a state that women were banned from central lobby altogether. By
:03:49. > :03:53.1908 their rallies attracted huge numbers but the Liberal government
:03:54. > :03:58.led by Asquith was unmoved. That October the suffragettes plans to
:03:59. > :04:00.rush Parliament. There had been a demonstration, one quarter of a
:04:01. > :04:06.million gathered, and nobody would do anything and we still had no
:04:07. > :04:10.movement on the right to vote. They decided to organise the rush on
:04:11. > :04:16.Parliament. We think 60,000 were on the rush. It has been commemorated
:04:17. > :04:20.recently, the environmental movement decided to repeat the rush that had
:04:21. > :04:24.a climate change rush on Parliament, so a precedent for continuing
:04:25. > :04:27.campaigns. Some managed to break through police lines at one made it
:04:28. > :04:35.onto the floor of the Commons chamber. Pankhurst was jailed for
:04:36. > :04:39.her part in inciting the rush. On her release, colleagues awarded her
:04:40. > :04:45.this medal. It is now owned by the Commons and is the centrepiece of a
:04:46. > :04:48.display by central lobby. Having the exhibition in the heart of the
:04:49. > :04:52.Houses of Parliament is important. This is the place the public can
:04:53. > :04:56.come and we can talk to people about the importance of the right to vote
:04:57. > :04:59.and what women and others went through to get the right and to
:05:00. > :05:04.encourage them to exercise that right democratically. Very
:05:05. > :05:08.important. In November 1910, suffragettes again tried to rush
:05:09. > :05:14.Parliament, but were forced back by police. The violence of the day
:05:15. > :05:23.caused the women to name Black Friday. The Black Friday deputation
:05:24. > :05:29.was the most extraordinary thing and most seem to be unable to remember.
:05:30. > :05:35.The treatment we received. I was arrested twice on Black Friday. I
:05:36. > :05:45.cannot remember one time at all. The other time, I remember we were
:05:46. > :05:51.smashed against a wall and arrested. Some people had the most ghastly
:05:52. > :05:53.treatment. Having been banned from central lobby the suffragettes
:05:54. > :05:59.turned their attention to the main hall.
:06:00. > :06:06.In May 1909 a group of people entered St Stephens and the men and
:06:07. > :06:12.so to see their men burst of Parliament but the woman waited on
:06:13. > :06:17.the seats of St Stephens. After a few minutes they all jumped up and
:06:18. > :06:20.they had padlocks and chains head on about their clothing and the chained
:06:21. > :06:27.themselves to four of the statues as a protest and started to blow
:06:28. > :06:31.whistles, it was to advertise a forthcoming suffragette rally. A
:06:32. > :06:38.statue was slightly damaged and the spire from his boot was not find you
:06:39. > :06:43.can see it is still missing. One of the regular protesters at Parliament
:06:44. > :06:49.was Emily Davidson. She hid in this broom cupboard in the Palace of
:06:50. > :06:53.Westminster on the ninth of the 1911 census so when Arthur Road race she
:06:54. > :06:56.could reply the House of Commons. Two years later she died when she
:06:57. > :07:02.was hit by the Kings horse at the derby while testing. The scarf she
:07:03. > :07:09.was wearing that day as long to the exhibition. Whether direct action
:07:10. > :07:12.proved more decisive than campaigning is debatable. I would
:07:13. > :07:18.have thought there were a mix of issues in the campaign was also
:07:19. > :07:22.connected with the campaign for working rights for women so you have
:07:23. > :07:26.old range of different things going on but undoubtedly the militant
:07:27. > :07:30.action also played its part and I have to say I do not know whether I
:07:31. > :07:34.would have been as brave as they work. It is hard to put yourself
:07:35. > :07:39.back in that position but I wonder what I would have done. I hope I
:07:40. > :07:42.would have been on the demonstration. Whether I would have
:07:43. > :07:49.trained myself to the railings, throwing stones, been on hunger
:07:50. > :07:51.strike, I am not sure. Public pressure grew as suffragettes were
:07:52. > :07:58.force-fed to prevent them hunger striking, a hugely unpopular policy,
:07:59. > :08:05.but the turning point would be the First World War. The women's world
:08:06. > :08:11.effort was recognised. In 1980 women over 30 were given the right to
:08:12. > :08:17.vote. They finally got the vote at the same age as men in 1928. 50
:08:18. > :08:27.years of careful negotiation to get a vote. At the finish it was the
:08:28. > :08:32.1914 war and all the agitation from that brought the vote. Emily
:08:33. > :08:38.Pankhurst died a month before the 1928 act became law. This statue to
:08:39. > :08:42.her was unveiled two years later and stands in Victoria gardens close to
:08:43. > :09:20.the parliament she fought so hard to influence.
:09:21. > :09:28.The Palace of Westminster with its many stone figures as the ultimate
:09:29. > :09:32.Gothic revival building. It was a genius who got the design to created
:09:33. > :09:39.this visual feast of stonework paraphernalia we see today. There
:09:40. > :09:44.are gargoyles, angels and lions in all manner of hideous creatures
:09:45. > :09:48.watching over you from every corner. While most gargoyles might be
:09:49. > :09:53.grotesque or grotesques are not gargoyles. If it acts as a drain
:09:54. > :09:58.pipe and expels water from a building then it is a gargoyle. All
:09:59. > :10:04.other such carved creatures no matter how scary they might be are
:10:05. > :10:08.called grotesques. Road Tesco faces, mixtures of body parts morphed into
:10:09. > :10:13.all kinds of strange creatures such as Britons and other dragon is
:10:14. > :10:18.forums, are in abundance on the Palace of Westminster. They seem
:10:19. > :10:22.confused with their surroundings and pretend to threaten but do not harm.
:10:23. > :10:28.Gargoyles have been around for thousands of years. This would be
:10:29. > :10:32.the chance for the stonemason to indulge in his craft, often
:10:33. > :10:35.incorporating his own features or likeness within the sculpture. In
:10:36. > :10:41.the 12th Century gargoyles for started to appear in Europe and most
:10:42. > :10:46.of the population at this time were elected at Sully at his borough
:10:47. > :10:50.power for way of conveying ideas. Lions appear frequently throughout
:10:51. > :10:57.the Palace, a symbol of pride with links to royalty and honour. Dogs
:10:58. > :10:59.can the faithfulness, loyalty and intelligence and the eagle portrays
:11:00. > :11:04.respect and the ability to see violence in the distance in a
:11:05. > :11:09.protective watchman like way. The more you looks the more you see the
:11:10. > :11:14.hidden treasure within the walls in the arches of this fascinating
:11:15. > :11:17.building. A fantastic display of crouched forms secretly and silently
:11:18. > :11:49.watching over you. Whitehall, the heart of government,
:11:50. > :11:51.do you think you could handle the police, security services,
:11:52. > :12:00.counter-terrorism and once upon a time presence? So you want to be
:12:01. > :12:07.Home Secretary. Good news does not travel across the Home Secretary's
:12:08. > :12:12.desk. It is extremely hard work. It is often not appreciated outside.
:12:13. > :12:16.You go to bed at night and everything is calm and under control
:12:17. > :12:21.and do our work on at 2am and some disastrous event has taken place,
:12:22. > :12:25.you know nothing about it, it has nothing to do with you, but in the
:12:26. > :12:31.morning everybody is going to be out for your blood saying it is your
:12:32. > :12:34.fault. Jill Rutter was a senior civil servant and is now at the
:12:35. > :12:38.Institute for Government and of all Whitehall jobs she thinks this one
:12:39. > :12:44.is the tough one. The Home Office used to be a political graveyard.
:12:45. > :12:47.Responsibility for prisons which it has lost but still in charge of
:12:48. > :12:53.things like counter-terrorism, police, immigration, where the big
:12:54. > :12:57.question is what will go wrong? Home Secretary knows that something will
:12:58. > :13:01.go wrong somewhere in one of those areas, they do not know what or
:13:02. > :13:05.when. So one of the key attributes of being Home Secretary is to be
:13:06. > :13:10.able to manage those risks, the act calmly and not be panicked by
:13:11. > :13:19.headlines into bad legislation and things like that. That level of
:13:20. > :13:22.responsibility can be daunting. Even the Prime Minister Gordon Brown
:13:23. > :13:27.started the conversation by saying Jackie, I expect this will be a
:13:28. > :13:33.shock to you. He was right, it was. I managed to avoid the F word that
:13:34. > :13:36.Margaret Beckett used when asked to be Home Secretary but I think
:13:37. > :13:42.something unguarded came out of my mouth. It was a shock. I had asked
:13:43. > :13:46.if at all possible for a different job. It is a prize in one of the
:13:47. > :13:51.things that makes the job a talented department itself. Kenneth Baker who
:13:52. > :13:57.was one of my predecessors and the friend said to me shortly before the
:13:58. > :14:06.97 election, Jack, good luck as Home Secretary, remember... You always
:14:07. > :14:09.felt there was some person who worked under the State Department
:14:10. > :14:13.whose name you did not know, whose responsibilities you had no idea of,
:14:14. > :14:21.who was going to destroy your carrier. That is probably pretty
:14:22. > :14:26.accurate. Because in any big organisation things go wrong and you
:14:27. > :14:32.do not miss a thoroughly know about them until they go wrong and then
:14:33. > :14:35.the buck stops at the Secretary of State. This personal responsibility
:14:36. > :14:41.combines with the seriousness of the issue into quite a bruising mix.
:14:42. > :14:46.Everybody makes mistakes. Every minister makes mistakes. We are all
:14:47. > :14:49.fallible human beings. If you are in another department that is quite a
:14:50. > :14:55.reasonable chance that the mistake you make will be in some dark hidden
:14:56. > :15:00.corner where no one is looking. There are no dark hidden corners in
:15:01. > :15:05.the Home Office. When I was told I had to release a prisoner because he
:15:06. > :15:13.was convicted of an offence which did not exist because I had failed
:15:14. > :15:15.to have that offence renewed in the prevention of terrorism temporary
:15:16. > :15:20.provisions order and what had happened was an official had left of
:15:21. > :15:24.something from the list, I go to the House of Commons and explain that
:15:25. > :15:31.someone who is plainly guilty is going to be released, and I am to
:15:32. > :15:35.blame. It is complete incompetence. You have to accept these things.
:15:36. > :15:40.Managing the internal structure and culture of the Home Office as part
:15:41. > :15:46.of the job. There were obvious times when what I wanted to do was a shock
:15:47. > :15:50.to the system within the department, which was used to saying I do not
:15:51. > :15:55.think Home Secretary we really can do anything about this, this is
:15:56. > :16:03.outside the scope of what is possible, and I never accepted that.
:16:04. > :16:06.There were occasions when press officers, when journalists would
:16:07. > :16:10.phone the press office to ask what the Home Office line was on whatever
:16:11. > :16:20.it was and they would be told, the Home Office line is ABC but the Home
:16:21. > :16:26.Secretary... That took quite a lot of dealing with. On top of trying to
:16:27. > :16:30.push your own agenda there is the constant intrusion of crises. The
:16:31. > :16:36.day I arrived it was a beautiful clear day, sunlight day, and the
:16:37. > :16:42.permanent secretary Richard Wilson said to me, what can you see? I said
:16:43. > :16:47.blue sky. He said that is very dangerous, at any moment an Exocet
:16:48. > :16:51.that you cannot see will come through the sky and land wrecked
:16:52. > :16:58.their and it will explode unless you are very careful. That can happen on
:16:59. > :17:04.day one. Jacqui Smith at the handle a terrorist attack on Glasgow
:17:05. > :17:08.Airport and be judged on how to -- how she coped. That was a certain
:17:09. > :17:12.element of that which was good grief she did not come running screaming
:17:13. > :17:17.out of Downing Street, she held it together. I was going to hold it
:17:18. > :17:23.together because I was well well believed, confident, experienced.
:17:24. > :17:26.That probably did some good in overcoming people's apprehensions
:17:27. > :17:30.about whether I was going to be able to manage it. The thing that came
:17:31. > :17:36.out of the blue was the advisory Council on the misuse of drugs and
:17:37. > :17:39.the sacking of Professor Nutt. If anyone remembers anything about my
:17:40. > :17:44.time in office they remember that and I still get not exactly fan
:17:45. > :17:50.mail, the opposite of fan mail, about that. That came up bit of the
:17:51. > :17:54.clear, out of a clear blue sky. Charles God did not believe in the
:17:55. > :18:01.department for handling crises. He wanted to change things. I thought
:18:02. > :18:06.that just about all crises, perhaps not the intruder in the Queen's
:18:07. > :18:12.bedroom, but just about every other crisis is probably speaking
:18:13. > :18:15.predictable in general if not predictable specifically. I thought
:18:16. > :18:20.we could pretend preventative strategies and that is how I saw my
:18:21. > :18:23.role. Trying to focus on your political agenda on the one hand and
:18:24. > :18:31.fend off prices on the other is not easy. It is like being in a ship
:18:32. > :18:36.knowing your destination and having it vaguely insight but in the middle
:18:37. > :18:42.of the Tempest, a storm, and wins buffeting you one way and the other
:18:43. > :18:50.everyday and trying to deal with them while at the same time reaching
:18:51. > :18:56.your destination. The only caveat is that the destination keeps moving
:18:57. > :18:59.away. Being such an all-consuming job is perhaps why so few Home
:19:00. > :19:05.Secretary is going be Prime Minister. You ignore the skills and
:19:06. > :19:18.nuances you need to move upwards. I suppose I was so obsessed with
:19:19. > :19:25.changing things and getting things done. It was a really challenging
:19:26. > :19:31.demanding task. I probably did not devote enough time and energy to the
:19:32. > :19:34.presentation. It is often the frustration at Number 10 that they
:19:35. > :19:39.feel the people who are at the departmental heads go native and
:19:40. > :19:44.stop thinking about the broad politics and start thinking about
:19:45. > :19:48.the actual job itself and that was probably a criticism that could be
:19:49. > :19:53.made of me as well and that aspect was always with me. The politics of
:19:54. > :19:59.the moment not always and in some way is I regret that. Isn't it an
:20:00. > :20:04.irony that one of Whitehall's covers jobs for the seep of giving us save
:20:05. > :20:11.the Home Secretary is worst of protecting themselves?