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Menzies Campbell

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Sir Walter Menzies Campbell, CBE, QC (born 22 May 1941, Glasgow), also 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.

Contents

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 and Northern Ireland 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 UK 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".

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. [link]

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 defence 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 spoken of as a candidate for Speaker when Betty Boothroyd stood down in 2000.

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, and from 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-running candidate in the 2006 leadership election following the resignation of Charles Kennedy, brought about because of a (long denied) alcohol problem, having been 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, had more popular support and became favourite with the bookmakers[link], but Campbell went on to win the leadership election with 57% of the second round votes.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats

On the 2nd 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, roughly 3:2 in favour of Menzies, with 711 members not expressing a second preference. The final result was Menzies Campbell 29,697, Chris Huhne 21,628 on a 72% turnout of the membership. Despite Campbell's age, the Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team includes many young new MPs, with one, Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, only 26 years of age.

However after only months in his new position there were questions raised over Sir Menzies' performance at the weekly Prime Minister's Questions. Since then he has vowed to improve his delivery of questions after some disquiet from his shadow cabinet. His performance on 7th June 2006 was said by critics to be his best so far when he questioned the prime minister on findings in the Council of Europe report on extraordinary rendition.

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 St Andrews University 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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Leaders of the Liberal Democrats
  Leaders of the Liberal Party
(Post 1945)  		Clement Davies | Jo Grimond | Jeremy Thorpe | Jo Grimond | David Steel
  Leaders of the SDP  Roy Jenkins | David Owen | Robert Maclennan
  Leaders of the Liberal Democrats  David Steel | Robert Maclennan | Paddy Ashdown | Charles Kennedy | Menzies Campbell

 

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