July 6, 2006: Ming Campbell speaks to the City of London at the London Stock Exchange in association with CentreForum:

Elections show that my party is a powerful force across Britain.

Beating Labour in Dunfermline and West Fife earlier this year; beating Labour in the local elections in May and then within a whisker of beating the Conservatives in Bromley.

Three party politics is here and here to stay.

Our voice – raising issues that the other parties and the fashionable commentators miss – is critical to British politics.

And now as both Labour and the Conservatives want to close down debate on the tax system and tax structure, I believe it is time to open up that debate.

It is a debate that the Liberal Democrats will not shy from, and it is a debate that will be better informed with input from the City. No serious political party with ambitions to reach government should fail to take account of the needs of British business and industry.

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Liberalism has always been and should be about enterprise, competition, free trade and open markets.

I am part of that tradition whose economic liberalism, of course, we have to balance with a concern for the environmental impact of economic activity, the need for properly funded public services and a fair distribution of rewards.

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