The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics’, declared suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst.
Today, when the government and right-wing press are declaring moral outrage at the smashing of a window in Milbank Tower, many activists have been looking back to the inspiring examples of suffragette direct action by women who suffered pain and even broken bones for their cause.
A little over a hundred years ago (on Friday 18th November 1910), a suffragette deputation to the House of Commons met with a six hour onslaught of police brutality resulting in a the Suffragettes beginning a huge window smashing campaign in protest.Police beat them hard and they were terrorised; some said the trauma affected them for the rest of their lives.