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Menzies Campbell

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The Rt Hon. Sir Menzies Campbell, CBE, QC, MP
Leader of the Liberal Democrats
In office
2 March 2006 – present
Preceded byCharles Kennedy
ConstituencyNorth East Fife
Majority12,571 (32.6%)
Personal details
Born22 May 1941
Glasgow, Scotland
Political partyLiberal Democrat
SpouseElspeth Urquhart
Websitewww.mingcampbell.org.uk

Sir Walter Menzies Campbell, CBE, QC (born 22 May 1941, Glasgow), commonly known as Ming Campbell, is a British politician. He is the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for North East Fife and was elected leader of the Liberal Democrat party on 2 March 2006.

"Menzies" is pronounced MING-iss (IPA: /ˈmɪŋɪs/), the "z" being a transliteration of the yogh originally included in the name; hence "Ming."

Early life

Menzies Campbell was educated at Hillhead High School, Glasgow, and the University of Glasgow, graduating MA and LL.B. Campbell's contemporaries at the University of Glasgow included Lord Irvine, the former Lord Chancellor, Donald Dewar and John Smith, who attempted to recruit him for the Labour Party. He was elected President of the Glasgow University Union and later received a scholarship to Stanford University, California.

A successful sprinter at University, he competed for the Great Britain team in the 200 m at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and captained the Scotland team at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica. He also captained the Great Britain and Northern Ireland athletics team in 1965 and 1966, and held the British 100 metres record from 1967 to 1974. At one time he was known as "the fastest white man on the planet".[citation needed]

He qualified as an advocate before he became a politician. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1968 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1982.

Campbell married Elspeth, Lady Suttie, daughter of Major General Roy Urquhart, in June 1970. They have no children. [1]

Political career

He became chairman of the Scottish Liberals in 1975, and was a candidate at various general elections between 1974 and 1983. After three failed attempts, he was finally elected as Member of Parliament, for North East Fife, in 1987. He was made the Liberal Democrat chief spokesman on foreign affairs and defense in 1992, and he has served as a Shadow Foreign Secretary since the Liberal Democrats decided to operate a Shadow Cabinet in 1997. He considered standing as a candidate to replace Paddy Ashdown as party leader in the 1999 leadership election but ultimately decided against. He later said that he regretted that decision "for about 10 minutes a day". He was also one of twelve candidates for the position of Speaker when Betty Boothroyd stood down in 2000, but he lost to Michael Martin.

He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a form of cancer, in 2002 and underwent a course of intensive chemotherapy before going on to make a full recovery.

Campbell replaced Alan Beith as deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats in February 2003 and on occasion had to act as a stand-in Leader of the party. He took over in the general election campaign for three days from 12 April 2005 when Charles Kennedy took paternity leave.

In his role as Shadow Foreign Secretary, Sir Menzies Campbell was prominent in the Liberal Democrat opposition to the 2003 Iraq War, repeatedly arguing that the British government should publish the Attorney General's secret advice on the war's legality and criticising Tony Blair's seemingly one-sided support for President Bush. Unsympathetic towards what he terms the "visceral anti-Americanism" of some in the anti-war movement, Campbell has noted that: "For more than 60 years we have been engaged in an intimate and rewarding relationship with the United States … Our two countries are bound together historically by common values and experience. But our relationship should be one of mature partnership, not one of undue deference." [2]

After 7 January 2006 he was the interim Leader following Kennedy's resignation, before winning the subsequent leadership contest. Despite his relatively advanced age compared to the leaders of the other two main parties, Tony Blair and David Cameron, he started as the front-runner in the 2006 leadership election, backed by more than a third of Lib Dem MPs and party notables such as David Steel, Shirley Williams and Paddy Ashdown. As the race drew on it appeared that Chris Huhne, initially the outsider, was rapidly gaining support and became favourite with the bookmakers[3], but Campbell went on to win with 57% of the second round votes.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats

On 2 March 2006 Campbell was declared leader of the Liberal Democrats after winning the leadership election. The election was carried out using the Single Transferable Vote method. The first round votes placed him well in the lead at 23,264 to Chris Huhne's 16,691 and Simon Hughes' 12,081. Simon Hughes was accordingly eliminated and his second preference votes were split between the two remaining candidates. The final result was Sir Menzies Campbell 29,697, Chris Huhne 21,628 on a 72% turnout of the membership.[4]

Sir Menzies has promoted many talented younger MPs within his Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team including former MEP Nick Clegg as Shadow Home Secretary and 26 year old Jo Swinson as Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland.

A few weeks prior to Campbell's election to the party leadership, the Liberal Democrats won the Dunfermline and West Fife seat from Labour in a by-election. This was viewed as a major victory for Sir Menzies and as a particular blow for Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown, who lives in the constituency, represents the adjacent seat, and featured prominently in Labour's by-election campaign.

However, some questions were raised over Sir Menzies' early performances at the weekly Prime Minister's Questions [5], leading him to declare himself "perfectly confident" that he can fulfil the role of party leader.[6] Since then, his performances have improved significantly, although this has occurred alongside a shift in the political debate away from social policy issues and towards "classic liberal issues" such as civil liberties, human rights and foreign policy. These included the controversy over the US practice of "extraordinary rendition"[7], the case of the NatWest Three [8], and the conflict in Lebanon [9]

Polls published in July 2006 claimed that twice as many voters would prefer to see Charles Kennedy as Leader than Sir Menzies, leading to some further criticism of Campbell's leadership.[10] Kennedy has however dismissed rumours that he is considering challenging for the leadership as "fanciful". [11]

His decision to award a honorary doctorate of law to former President Khatami of Iran sparked widespread critique.[12][13] [14]


Beliefs

Sir Menzies Campbell’s political beliefs can be summarised as those of a moderate social liberal. Unlike Simon Hughes, his erstwhile leadership rival, Campbell’s views on the appropriate role of the state in the economy are limited to correcting market failures and funding essential public services: influenced by Shadow Chancellor Vincent Cable and Shadow Environment Secretary Chris Huhne, Campbell has promoted radical policies to shift taxation away from ‘goods’ such as employment and towards ‘bads’ such as pollution, through a revenue-neutral restructuring of the tax system that maintains the current tax burden whilst lifting two-million low-paid individuals out of income tax altogether.[15]

Campbell’s primary area of interest is acknowledged to be foreign policy: he strongly supports multilateral institutions such as the European Union and the United Nations, though argues that the former must reform to become more democratic and the latter must develop new mechanisms for dealing with humanitarian crises [16]. He has also been critical of the what he claims is “disproportionate military action” employed by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza and in Lebanon, contending that Israel’s tactics exacerbate existing tensions and lead to human rights abuses.[17] Though a supporter of US-UK cooperation, Campbell has argued that the current Bush-Blair relationship is one-sided and has been pursued at the expense of Britain's standing in other international institutions, particularly the EU and UN.

Although never going so far as to advocate direct affirmative action policies (such as Labour’s all-woman shortlists), Campbell has stressed the need for the Liberal Democrats to provide extra support for female, disabled and ethnic minority candidates seeking to contest winnable seats.[18] Despite their support for anti-discrimination legislation and their defence of the rights of immigrants and refugees, the party has only once had a single non-white MP in the House of Commons (Parmjit Singh Gill).

Honours

Campbell was appointed CBE in the 1987 New Years Honours List; he became a Privy Counsellor in the 1998 New Year Honours; and he was awarded a knighthood in the 2004 New Year Honours for "services to Parliament".

He has honorary degrees from Glasgow and Strathclyde universities. He was the only person nominated to succeed Sir Kenneth Dover after he retired as Chancellor of the University of St Andrews on 1 January 2006, so took office immediately after nominations closed on 9 January 2006. He was installed as Chancellor on the 22 April 2006, at which time he also received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

See also

External links

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Menzies Campbell

Offices Held

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Parliament of the United Kingdom

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Political offices
Preceded by Deputy Leader of the British Liberal Democrats
2003–2006 		Succeeded by
Honorary titles
Preceded by Chancellor of the University of St Andrews
2006–present 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
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