Ex-Observer reporter puts pioneers in perspective

For them and for everyone in the country who takes the democratic heritage for granted a former Observer reporter has written a book which is strongly recommended reading.

Were it not for the likes of campaigners like William Cobbett and Henry Hunt the opportunity for adults in Great Britain to exercise a free choice in a secret ballot at elections free of corruption and intimidation simply would not exist.

In their day, these 19th Century political giants were considered to be dangerous radicals; subversive elements who would lead Britain not on the path of true democracy but down the dangerous road to a French-style revolution.

They were vilified in a corrupt parliament and demonised in a national press under the control of powerful influences and in fear of retribution.

Election candidates openly offered bribes to the narrow element of the community given the right to vote and hired mobs to break up hustings meetings.

Tiny communities such as Old Sarum returned Mps while the nation's fast-growing cities had no representation.

As Penny Young - who began her journalistic career with the Bexhill Observer in the mid-Seventies - graphically relates, both men suffered prison sentences for daring to speak out against such evils as "rotten boroughs" and Corn Laws which left the poor at starvation levels.

Henry "Orator" Hunt was the master of the public meeting, a dynamic speaker whose powers of argument were matched by the pen of William Cobbett, whose Political Register complemented by Hunt's rhetoric in print.

Tragically for the movement they fought so hard to serve, as Penny reveals in Two Cocks On The Dunghill (Two Penny Press, 17.95), the political arena of the day was not large enough to accommodate two massive egos.

Eventually, jealousy fired a massive falling-out between two of the best-known figures of their day.

At a point in the campaign when their continued cooperation could have achieved so much they disipated their energies in public vituperation.

Though both eventually became MPs and saw the Reform Bill become law, it was a watered-down version of their aspirations. Another century was to pass before all adults in the UK could go to the polls.

Two Cocks On The Dunghill takes its title from a popular analogy of the day.

In nearly 370 pages, Penny Young details the development of a powerful campaign partnership which the duo (and most of the blame must fall on the jealous Cobbett) allowed to turn sour.

A friend and former Observer colleague must be warmly congratulated on diligent and exhaustive research which has endowed a well-written book with a wealth of insight not only into the complex personalities of Cobbett and Hunt but into the personal courage with which they conducted their campaign.

Hunt turned his physical suffering while in jail at Ilchester Prison to good effect, conducting a campaign against the torture endured there and the foul living conditions.

Cobbett fled briefly to the infant United States, whose constitution he so greatly admired.

Neither man could be said at the end to have won possession of the "dunghill" over which they fought their pointless personal battle.

Both exhausted themselves by their campaigning. Neither lived long into the era of their first, limited, reforms.

But their legacy to us in setting electoral reform in motion is there today for all who choose to make use of their vote.

While Cobbett is still remembered, though principally for his Rural Rides books detailing farming conditions and advocating agricultural advancement, "Orator" Hunt is largely forgotten today.

Through her book, Penny Young has worked both hard and effectively, to put both men in their proper historical context.

Well done, Penny.