MENZIES CAMPBELL

'Sir Walter Menzies Campbell', CBE, QC (born 22 May 1941), 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: ), and originally written Minȝies, the "z" being a poor rendition of the yogh (Ȝ) originally included in the name; hence "Ming".

Contents

Early Life

Member of Parliament

Liberal Democrats Frontbenches

Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Beliefs

Honours

See also

References

External links

Offices Held

Early Life

Born in Glasgow, Menzies Campbell was educated at Hillhead High School, Glasgow, and the University of Glasgow, graduating MA and LLB. 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 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", running the 100m in 10.12 twice during 1967 ^[1].
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.^[2]

Member of Parliament

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.

Liberal Democrats Frontbenches

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''." ^[3]

Leader of the Liberal Democrats

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^[4], but Campbell went on to win with 57% of the second round votes.
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.^[5]
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 ^[6], leading him to declare himself "perfectly confident" that he can fulfil the role of party leader.^[7] 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"^[8], the case of the NatWest Three ^[9], and the conflict in Lebanon ^[10]
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.^[11] Kennedy has however dismissed rumours that he is considering challenging for the leadership as "fanciful". ^[12]
The University of St Andrews' decision to award an honorary doctorate of law to former President Khatami of Iran sparked some criticism, although as Chancellor he is only titular head and not involved in such decisions.^[13][14][15] Khatami was elected as President of Iran in 1997 and 2001, both occasions on platforms of social and political reform and a "Dialogue Among Civilizations" that put Khatami significantly at odds with his conservative successor, President Ahmadinejad.
Shortly before Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister in June 2007, Campbell was invited to a meeting with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown surprised Campbell by requesting two Liberal Democracts (Lord Ashdown and Lady Neuberger) join his cabinet. After taking 24 hours to consult and consider, Campbell rejected the offer as unworkable, given the gulf between the parties on isues from foreign policy to civil liberties. Labour leaked news of the meeting to the media - allegedly in order to "spin" Brown's bipartisan credentials - and went behind Sir Menzies to offer the job of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to Ashdown anyway; Ashdown turned it down. ^[16] Critics note that, since devolution, the role of Northern Ireland Secretary is essentially defunct (the incumbent, Shaun Woodward, doesn't receive a ministerial salary), lending weight to claims that the job offer was merely a media-relations exercise. If Brown genuinely desired his expertice, Ashdown would have been a more logical choice for Defence Secretary or Foreign Secretary, where he could employ his Bosnian experience to peacekeeping and managing the transition to democracy in Iraq.
In July 2007, Campbell unveiled his radical new tax proposals. ^[17] These amount to a large shift in the tax burden (certified as revenue-neutral by the non-partisan Institute for Fiscal Studies) away from low- and middle-income earners and onto higher-earners and pollution. This is to be implemented by cutting the basic rate of income tax from 20% to 16%, closing £13.5bn of tax loopholes for high-earners and imposing larger green taxes on polluters. Campbell said of the proposals, "''the unacceptable reality is that in Britain today the poorest pay a higher proportion of their income in tax than the super-rich''" and that his aim was for "''the rich and people with environmentally damaging lifestyles pay a fairer share''".

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.^[18]
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 ^[19]. 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.^[10] Though a supporter of US-UK cooperation, Campbell has argued that the Bush-Blair relationship was one-sided and that the Labour government pursued it 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.^[21] 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

★ Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team

References

1. http://www.sporting-heroes.net/athletics-heroes/displayhero.asp?HeroID=1884
2. Profile: Lady Campbell BBC News, 2 March 2006
3. Full text: Menzies Campbell's speech Guardian Unlimited,September 24, 2003
4. Lib Dem hopefuls clash over Iraq BBC News,9 February 2006
5. Ming Campbell elected Liberal Democrat leader Liberal Democrats, 2 March 2006
6. Prime minister's questions BBC News, 11 January 2006
7. Sir Menzies defending his record BBC News, 14 May 2006
8. This was Ming's day BBC News, 7 June 2006
9. MPs angry at 'unfair' extradition BBC News, 12 July 2006
10. End Israel arms export - Lib Dems BBC News, 24 July 2006
11. Kennedy receives popularity boost BBC News, 19 July 2006
12. Kennedy denies leadership reports BBC News, 30 July 2006
13. The dishonouring of St Andrews Times Online, 25 October 2006
14. It isn't just Bono's U2 who are talking through their hat about tax avoidance Guardian Unlimited, 22 October 2006
15. Khatami's UK visit to bring tirade from Iran Guardian Unlimited, 5 October 2006
16. Lib Dem anger over Brown tricks BBC News, 21 June 2007
17. Lib Dems plan 4p cut in income tax, BBC News, 12 July 2007
18. Lib Dems pledge to cut income tax BBC News, 8 June 2006
19. Full text: Sir Menzies Campbell's speech to the Lib Dem conference Guardian Unlimited, 19 September 2005
20. End Israel arms export - Lib Dems BBC News, 24 July 2006
21. Menzies Campbell's speech on liberal Britain Guardian Unlimited, 8 June 2006

External links

★ Ming Campbell MP - Ming Campbell's website

★ The Campbell Campaign - Ming Campbell's campaign to lead the Liberal Democrats

★ Rt Hon Sir Menzies Campbell CBE QC MP profile at the site of Liberal Democrats

★ Sir Menzies Campbell MP (Guardian Unlimited Politics, Ask Aristotle)

★ Menzies Campbell MP (from TheyWorkForYou.com)

★ Menzies Campbell MP voting record (from the Public Whip)

★ Open Directory Project - Menzies Campbell directory category

★ 1999 New Year Honours (BBC News, 31 December, 1998)

★ Campbell abandons Lib Dem race (BBC News, 27 May, 1999)

★ Review of 1999: Menzies Campbell (BBC News, 30 December, 1999)

★ Who will replace the Speaker? (BBC News, 17 July, 2000)

★ Cancer treatment for Lib Dem Campbell (BBC News, 22 November, 2002)

★ Lib Dems elect deputy leader (BBC News, 12 February, 2003)

★ Campbell heads political honours (BBC News, 31 December, 2003)

★ Cartoon by Steve Bell dubs him "Ming the Merciless" (''The Guardian'', 16 December 2005

★ Steve Bell's cartoon expressing concern for Campbell's leaning to the right. 03/03/2006.

★ Menzies Campbell profile (BBC News, 2 March, 2006)

★ Ashdown gives Sir Menzies backing (BBC News, 9 January 2006)

★ What to call Ming's backers? (BBC News, 9 January 2006)

★ Why is Menzies pronounced Mingis? (BBC News, 10 January 2006)

★ Sir Menzies Campbell MP elected new Chancellor of the University of St Andrews. (University of St Andrews Press Office, 11 January 2006)

★ http://www.campbellcampaign.org/

Offices Held