more … ]]> Ming will be one of the keynote speakers at a public rally in support of the Sustainable Communities Bill on Monday March 26th. Further details are on FlockTogether. The bill would give local communities much more say over what happens in their areas.

You can read more about the bill in the articles by Lib Dem MPs Julia Goldsworthy and Lynne Featherstone or you can watch Julia’s short film on the topic:

more … ]]> Following the House of Commons votes in favour of an elected House of Lords, Ming Campbell said:

“After nearly 100 years the House of Commons has at last taken the momentous step to reform the upper house and make it fit for a modern democracy. This is a famous victory for progressive opinion both in Parliament and in the country.”

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During a visit to Brussels to meet with the Liberal Democrat MEP team, Ming Campbell MP signed the OneSeat petition to have the European Parliament meet in only one location, rather than shuttling back and forth between Brussels and Strasbourg. The petition was started by Cecilia Malmström, an MEP from the Swedish Liberal Party, a sister party to the UK Liberal Democrats in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Over 1,036,653 other European citizens have signed the petition.

Find out more about the campaign to have the European Parliament in only one location »

more … ]]> Ming Campbell addressed the Liberal Democrats’ Taking Power consultation at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton as follows:

Download audio file (MingAtConference-TakingPower.mp3)

During the summer Elspeth and I like to spend as much time as we can at the Edinburgh Festival and one of the remarkable features now of the Edinburgh Festival is the way in which the book festival has become so significant, and it’s true all round the country. Book festivals have become enormously important. And when Roy Hattersley and Tony Benn and Denis Healey and people come to speak the tickets for these events are sold out within a matter of minutes of booking opening. And there is a sense in which book festivals have become a substitute if you like for the political meetings. If we’d taken a room in the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh in George Street and said we had all these politicians to speak we’d have got thirty people. Instead they talk to audiences of a thousand with others clambering outside.

But the person whose presence struck me more than any other as well as that was Helena Kennedy. Now some of you will know Helena Kennedy as the tame Labour Peer that Tony Blair put in to the House of Lords who’s turned in to a tigress, who has defended the right to trial by jury, who has defended the systematic authoritarianism of this Government, and who was the chair of the Power Inquiry. And at half past ten on a wet Monday morning in Edinburgh it was standing room only for Helena Kennedy to come and talk about the Power Inquiry.

Now that I think reflects precisely and exactly what Paul Tyler’s been talking about, about the fact that there is this sense of frustration and discontent among the public about politics, or rather more correctly about politicians and political institutions but not about politics. People are interested in politics, people are interested in whether they have any influence any longer on Government conducted on an increasingly presidential basis. And so our experience at the Edinburgh Book Festival simply goes to confirm the importance of the subject we’re talking about.

Now all of us here are political activists and we’ve all become increasingly aware of this disenchantment which so many members of the public feel. And how many of us could honestly say we haven’t from time to time been discouraged on that famous wet Tuesday night in Dudley that Kenneth Clarke reminded everyone of a few years ago when you knock on a door and someone comes and says, oh you’re all the same, you’re only in it for what you get? And you think, my feet are soaking, I haven’t had anything to eat, I could do with a drink, and this person says I’m in it for what I can get, well, we’re not getting very much are we? And that apathy is often discouraging.

And of course the other sign of that disengagement is the drop in election turn out, down what to sixty two, or the election before the last down to fifty nine per cent, sixty per cent the last time. Sixty per cent of adults voted, sixty three or sixty four per cent, I think I’m right, of adults in this country are on the internet. More people on the internet than actually bothered to vote in the last general election. Doesn’t that tell us something?

And worse of course is this generation of young people who have not voted, don’t feel compelled to vote and may never acquire the habit of voting, and yet, who were the people on the march against the war in Iraq? Who were the people who wanted to raise money for the victims of the Tsunami? Who are the people who are most desperately concerned about the environment? It was these same young people, keenly political, but with no confidence in political institutions and politics.

Now, those millions who marched against Iraq and those who’ve been part of the Make Poverty History campaign, I don’t know about other colleagues but in my constituency we’ve got a good ecumenical, all the churches, I went to talk to them the other day about Trident, they call themselves the Justice and Peace Group. But they got up at three o’clock in the morning when the G8, not this last one, the one before because it was in Gleneagles on the doorstep they didn’t have to get up at three o’clock in the morning, but when it was in Birmingham they got up at three o’clock in the morning, they went in a bus with their sandwiches and their thermos flasks and they went down to Birmingham and they stood outside and they clasped hands with that wonderful, wonderful circle round the G8 to say, come on it’s time you did something about the poorest people in the world. And these same people went to Gleneagles as well.

So there is a real sense still of people wanting to be engaged. Now people are not quite so deferential towards politicians as they have previously been and that is a very good thing too. But that gulf which I’ve identified is dangerous because if you have a political system that goes in one direction and if you have the public and the people going in another then the very cohesion of society is at risk.

And of course a lot of this was the prerogative of the chattering classes, the Observer readers, those who buy the Independent and think the front pages of the Independent are wonderful, people like me and you. But, well the front page of the Independent’s not always wonderful I have to say, and I’m not always entirely happy with the editorial. But then the Power Commission came along and what they decided to do was they decided not just to be independent in the sense of plucking a series of the great and the good, they ensured that the commissioners, the members, were representative of the country as a whole, and their task was to go away, go round the country, under Helena Kennedy’s leadership, and come back with proposals. And if you read the Power Commission it reads like a Liberal Democrat manifesto. But the advantage it has is this; it comes with independence. Because when you and I talk about proportional representation people always say ah we’re only interested in that because it would increase the number of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. But they came to this with total independence.

And from the moment I read that report I was absolutely determined that we as a party would not pass up the opportunity which is offered. First because we have always argued the case for the political process being more inclusive, more responsive and more interactive. What is community politics about if it’s not about making politics more responsive and more inclusive?

I’ve just been, there’s a race that they have here, I’ve just, for, for women, to raise money for the women’s refuge here, just along on the, on, on the esplanade, and that’s the kind of thing which to a very large extent was spawned by our notion of community politics. This is a voluntary organisation, the refuge here, it has to raise its own money, and there they were, what five, six hundred women, all running for their health and a bit of enjoyment but also in the name of this project. And that’s the kind of practical inclusiveness which we have always counted on.

And of course the second reason is the agenda of the Power Commission so followed our own thinking that we would be very foolish politically to let other parties monopolise what has been our territory. People say to me often, Andrew Marr said it to me this morning, or rather last night because we recorded last night, are you worried about David Cameron coming on to your ground? Not a bit of it. I want him on my ground. Why? ‘Cause it’s our ground, we know it, we understand it, we staked it out. And so when people talk about constitutional change and about reconnecting the public then this is something we know about and we must not under any circumstances cede any part of that ground to any party, however well intentioned it may be.

One issue though which the commission raised which is absolutely fundamental is this; we mustn’t cherry pick. Because it comes as a whole, it comes as a package, it has checks and balances contained within it. You start pulling pieces out then you destroy the integrity of the whole proposal.

And third, this commission offers us the chance to develop new ways of communicating with the citizens using Twenty First Century electronic media. Now as some of you will know I’m not the most qualified techie. Information (indistinct) is, technology is not my strongest suit but I’m surrounded by some very bright and clever people who know a great deal about it. But although I may not understand it I sure as hell understand the need to use it, because that statistic I gave you a moment or two ago about those adults who are on the internet tells us just how important this mechanism for communication is now and is going to be.

So that’s why, as Paul’s already said, in May I announced we were going to have a virtual conference, and it’s been successfully developed by Paul and Richard Allan and Martin Tod and Alex Davies, and it’s there, it’s taking place, we launched it the other day in the House of Commons. And all of them are here today and I think there’s an information pack, there’s information which enables you to be part of it, but also enables you to tell other people how to be part of it. And already hundreds of people, most of them new to any sort of political discussion, are taking part in this alternative conference. The closing date’s the 6th of October, we want many more people to join, and in particular we want many more young people to join as well.

Now David Steel famously said, go back to your constituencies and prepare for Government. My message is rather more prosaic. Go back to your constituencies and involve everyone in your constituency who wasn’t able to come to Brighton. But some actually might think that that more prosaic message may in the end have greater consequences.

This is a conference, this virtual conference, we can all attend without taking a week off work, without registration fees, without travel expenses, without inconveniencing the rest of the family. And it’s an opportunity for your local members to have their say in our conference, our internet conference, on how Britain should be run. It’s a chance to allow every voice to be heard and that is something that I wholeheartedly welcome and for which I seek your endorsement.

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Ming Campbell addressed the launch of the ‘Taking Power‘ virtual conference as follows:

Over the next few weeks, the UK’s political parties will descend on towns throughout the UK in order to hold their traditional autumn conferences. Political activists – the usual suspects – will flock to Brighton, Bournemouth and Manchester to discuss the issues that they consider important, and to consider their strategies for the coming year.

Only a small number of voters will ever go to a party conference and it should be of real concern to all of us that there are 17 million people in this country who did not vote in the last general election.

60% of young people stayed away from the ballot box in polling day last year. For them, the prospect of voting for their local MP, or playing a part in choosing the next government was clearly not a real priority.

This is a serious problem. It threatens the very legitimacy of our political system – because if you do not vote when you are young, you may never develop the habit of voting at all. And with successive generations turning there back on conventional politics in ever greater numbers, our participatory democracy is beginning to lack participants.

My party has often diagnosed problems with the health of Britain’s democracy. And written prescriptions too.

But this year, the POWER Commission, has reported on its mission to identify practical ways of reconnecting voters with the political process.

Its work has been invaluable, and is all the more credible for the non-partisan way in which it went about its task.

The strength of the POWER analysis is that its investigations took it well away from the Westminster Village and the political professionals: this was very much a consumer view. The POWER commissioners came from a diverse range of personal, political and professional backgrounds, from a Radio 1 DJ to a Finance Director. Not a single spin doctor in sight.

At the POWER Conference in May, I announced that an online “virtual conference” would be organised this autumn. Its purpose would be to re-engage people – especially younger people – in political discussion and decision-making.

I am therefore particularly pleased to launch Taking Power, which goes live today. From now until October 6th – while the party enthusiasts are gathering for their respective conferences – we will aim to gather people electronically to debate the issues raised by the POWER report.

There are no registration fees, no travel expenses and no need to take time off work. This alternative conference is open to every one of all political persuasions.

Prominent democrats of all three parties – and of none – will be involved in the online debate. This is a genuine attempt to engage people on a relatively non-partisan basis.

Liberal Democrats have long supported and encouraged dialogue with residents at the community level. We know from experience the value that dialogue has in engaging people with issues of concern in their area. To my mind Taking Power is a natural extension of that approach..

And the medium of the internet is all important to that. Our democracy can gain from connecting political thought with twenty first century technology. It could very well attract the participation of those who have kept their distance from the political process in the past.

By addressing new audiences in a way which is more convenient, accessible and meaningful than the old style draughty village hall, we demonstrate that politics need not be remote.

What will be the end result? That depends on those who take part, and what they say. What I can promise – and I hope other parties will do so too – is that we will listen very carefully indeed to the views that emerge from this unique process. The opportunity to engage people in debate and help to breathe new life into political debate in the UK is simply too big to pass up.

more … ]]> Today, Liberal Democrat Leader Ming Campbell and Liberal Democrat Peer, Paul Tyler, will launch a “virtual conference” with cross party support aimed at re-engaging people with the political process. Hundreds of people, particularly students, have already registered for the on-line conference.

It should be of real concern to all of us that there are 17 million people in this country who, did not vote in the last general election.

With successive generations turning their back on conventional politics in ever greater numbers, our participatory democracy is beginning to lack participants.

This year, the POWER Commission, has reported on its mission to identify practical ways of reconnecting voters with the political process. Its work has been invaluable, and is all the more credible for the non-partisan ways of reconnecting voters with the political process.

I am therefore particularly pleased to launch Taking Power, which goes live today. From now until October 6th – while the party enthusiasts are gathering for their respective conferences – we will aim to gather people electronically to debate issues raised by the POWER report.

The opportunity to involve people outside the Westminster bubble and help to breathe new life into political debate in the UK is simply too big to pass up.

People who will take part in the debate over the coming weeks include:

• Ming Campbell MP (Liberal Democrat Leader)
• Michael Meacher MP (Former Labour Minister)
• Billy Bragg (singer/songwriter, political campaigner)
• Sir George Young MP (Former Conservative Secretary of State)
• John Bercow MP (Conservative)

To access the debate go to http://www.takingpower.org

As well as being able to join in the online debate, the launch is to be ‘skypecast’ through internet phone provider Skype. To join the call, visit the special page for the planned skypecast.

You can read Ming Campbell’s speech at the launch of the Power Commission report here.

more … ]]> Responding to the announcement that the the Conservatives would seek to replace the Human Rights Act with a US-style Bill of Rights should they win the next election, Liberal Democrat Leader Ming Campbell said:

David Cameron appears confused. In one sentence he supports a Bill of Rights, while in the next he proposes scrapping the Human Rights Act. Finally he says he wants to keep Britain signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Let us be clear what David Cameron is planning. Under the Tory proposals, British citizens would have to take their cases to Strasbourg if they did not feel they had found justice in the British courts.

The whole point of the Human Rights Act is that British citizens have access to the same rights as everyone else, through the British courts.

David Cameron wants to ration those freedoms. There will be a wide set of rights for those wealthy enough to take their cases to Strasbourg, and restricted rights for everyone else.

The Human Rights Act sets out rights drawn up largely by British lawyers within the European Convention after the Second World War.

Only the Liberal Democrats would defend these hard-earned rights and enshrine them within a new constitutional settlement that would include a Bill of Rights and a written British Constitution.

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Ming Campbell addressed the Power Commission conference on May 6th, 2006 as follows:

The report of the Power Commission should worry every elected representative in Britain.

Because in their report the Commission says,

“We were struck by just how wide and deep is the contempt felt for formal politics in Britain.”

Well, that doesn’t make me feel too good, nor should it.

I can draw some small comfort from the fact that I agree with many of the sentiments and recommendations in the report.

The report describes a dysfunctional system in which disengagement has reached crisis levels.

Look at the figures:

• In recent elections, one third of the electorate do not feel represented by any of the political parties at Westminster.
• Less than one-in-five votes have had any impact on the outcome in 2001 and 2005.
• Despite a huge effort to extend postal voting, in the 2005 election, 39% of registered voters did not vote at all.

And this at a time when voter registration is at an all time low.

It is clearly a long term problem, increasingly evident since the 1960s, and one that affects not just Britain but other developed countries.

Before assuming office, the present government recognised many of the systemic failures of our democracy and committed themselves to solutions in the form of the 1997 Labour manifesto, Charter 88, and the Cook-Maclennan agreement between Labour and the Liberal Democrats on constitutional and electoral reform.

They have implemented some of what they promised – a devolved administration for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and some reform of the House of Commons, under Robin Cook.

But the roadblocks to a revival of democratic participation remain – electoral reform, reform of the House of Lords and the renaissance of local government.

These tasks were urgent in 1997. Failure to accord them the appropriate urgency once more will invite a crisis in the legitimacy and credibility of our institutions themselves.

As the Power Commission makes plain, the British political system has remained more or less unchanged since the Second World War.

It is a nineteenth century system that ill serves our 21st century society.

21st century Britain is place of educated, intelligent and engaged citizens who want to know how they are governed and who want to play a part.

If we are serious about fundamental constitutional and democratic reform then we must begin with the question of empowering people as citizens, not as subjects.

As the Power Commission report makes clear, ‘the age of deference is over.’

The disengagement we have all witnessed in recent general elections and, more starkly, on Thursday, urgently calls for a new approach, a renewal of our democracy.

An underlying theme of the Power report was that people felt they were not trusted.

Not trusted to make decisions. Not trusted with the whole truth of government information. Patronised by a trivial media and treated more like consumers than citizens.

We need to trust the people of Britain more.

We need to give power back to the people.

We need to ensure that government has the support of the majority.

We need to plug the gap in accountability.

Apart from the institutions themselves, the style of governance has been distorted under New Labour.

The Power Commission calls the power grab by New Labour ‘quiet authoritarianism’, others have called it ‘creeping authoritarianism’.

But the truth is that it was almost inevitable.

Without a written constitution, the institutions and the conventions of government are open to manipulation and even to being ignored by governments with large majorities.

We live in an elective dictatorship.

Parliament has become increasingly marginalised and ignored.

Ministers and Prime Minister are immune to the House of Commons.

One hundred and forty Labour MPs are in government as Ministers or PPSs; over a third of the ruling party.

Parliament is managed and not engaged.

An electoral system which sustained a two-party dichotomy is inadequate to represent the diverse politics of the 21st century.

At the next general election, a majority in the Commons could be achieved by a party without the largest number of votes, as happened in February 1974.

Turnout, already historically low, could be even lower.

Why do we even contemplate such possibilities.

People feel powerless, they feel they have no influence over those that govern them and the decisions that affect them.

It is not only politicians who have failed but politics itself.

As the Power Report says,

“Politics has failed to bring about fundamental improvements in the lives of the disadvantaged.”

This raises the question: what is politics for?

Democracy is about giving everyone an equal say in how our collective interests are addressed and how our collective resources are spent.

Democratic power is even more unevenly distributed in the UK than income.

The recent report of the New Economics Foundation which assesses this problem in terms of an ‘Index of Democratic Power’ (IDP), concluded that less than 3% of UK voters have anything like a fair share of power.

Against this backdrop the mantra of ‘choice’ in the public services, which would treat people as consumers not citizens, appears irrelevant.

64% of voters did not want this government at all.

They did not ‘choose’ this government.

If we are serious about choice, choice must start at the ballot box.

There is a real prospect that at the next general election the abstainers will be in the majority.

The task of renewal is urgent.

The Commission’s report found that there was, “an overwhelming desire for change among the British people, but that, as yet, no clear agenda for what such a change might look like.”

It appears to me that the agenda for change is now clear, in the shape of the Commission’s recommendations.

I support them and I urge my fellow party leaders to do the same.

Let me address each of the issues identified by Power in turn.

It is comforting to hear others outside the Westminster village speaking about the need to restrain the power of the Executive.

All of the Commission’s recommendations on rebalancing power between the executive and legislative branches and between national and local government are sound.

But, in some areas the detail is thin.

The concordat is an innovative and adaptable idea to set out the competences of the different branches of government, but only as a first step to a written constitution.

Flexibility, in the hands of authoritarian governments in the future, could be readily abused.

Any constitutional settlement will require interpretation.

A job for the new Supreme Court?

Consideration of constitutional reform should include a rigorous examination of the Royal Prerogative and its unfettered use by subsequent governments.

Since before the Iraq war I have been arguing for a war powers act to require parliamentary approval for a declaration of war.

But there are other areas where the prerogative’s undemocratic reach should be curtailed: such as Treaty making.

The motion for the Second Chamber of Parliament Bill which I co-sponsored in the House of Commons is an embodiment of the reforms recommended by Power for the Lords and it is the future shape of the Lords that I would like to see.

But in the light of recent events it is impossible to consider the reform of the House of Lords independently of the issue of party finance.

The honours system and the second chamber of parliament must be disentangled.

It may well be appropriate for Honours to be in the gift of the Prime Minister subject to independent audit, but appointment to the second chamber should certainly not be.

It is perhaps worth reminding the Prime Minister that in his book ‘NEW BRITAIN – My Vision of a Young Country’, published just before his 1997 election victory, Mr Blair pledged:

“an end to hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords as the first step to a properly directly elected second chamber, and the chance for the people to decide after the election the system by which they elect the government of the future”

It is perverse that in evidence given to the Hansard Society individual “Constituency MPs” (of all parties) are held in relatively high regard.

They are seen to be hard-working, conscientious and people of real integrity.

And yet the Commons – the collective of all those admired individuals – is seen as under the thumb of the Prime Minister or the Party Whips and incapable of its task of holding the Government to account.

The cause of this is the widespread, and accurate, perception that the institution no longer reflects the nation.

This is hardly surprising since the present government has the support of only 21.6% of those registered to vote.

An unresponsive electoral system is at the centre of this crisis of representation and the so-called ‘democratic deficit’ in Britain.

Reviving democratic participation in Britain is essential if the institutions are to maintain legitimacy, but also, if politics is to work as it should.

The argument about the Single Transferable Vote, Alternative Vote or any other voting system is not about whether it favours one party or another.

In a liberal society it can only be about how it delivers the wishes and preferences of the whole of society, particularly the disadvantaged and marginalised, into government.

Effective representation is the only way to reconnect our government with the citizens of Britain.

To improve responsiveness further and heighten accountability we need to sever other links in the political ecosystem.

And in particular, central party control over fundraising.

If parties are limited in the amount they can raise, as suggested in the Power report, they will seek to find money in other ways.

If that money is awarded through the ballot paper, then they will have to work hard for it.

This ingenious suggestion in the report, that voters indicate which party, or none, should receive a sum of money from the taxpayer when they vote, will reinvigorate local campaigning and make parties responsive to voters.

The principle that the amount should be split between local and national parties is equally neat and tailored to invigorate local democracy.

These proposals will encourage parties to break out of the current concentration on a small number of marginal seats.

My party already has well developed policy which springs from a similar diagnosis of the problems identified by the Power Commission.

And we have come to similar conclusions.

We have been at the forefront of arguing for a written constitution, for reform of the House of Lords, more powers for Select Committees and for changes to the electoral system.

But we do not rest.

Today I am announcing a new working group on citizenship and better government.

Among other things, it will be considering the proposals contained in the report.

The idea that citizens should be able to bring legislative proposals to the House of Commons is a good one and I welcome it.

Giving citizens the right to initiate hearings and public inquiries into public bodies would do much to strengthen citizens’ control over services and society as well as reducing their sense of disengagement and disenfranchisement.

The Commission found that ‘People feel disenfranchised and disenchanted because they are’.

It is not for politicians or the media to explain that feeling away, it is for us to accept the problem and look for ways of redressing the balance.

Anyone calling themselves a democrat cannot fail to seek to re-embed government in society, to refresh our systems of representation and to keep pace with the times.

If government does not represent our citizens, how can it hope to serve their needs?

I cannot stress this strongly enough.

Revitalising our democracy is not a technical discussion to be had between constitutional lawyers.

If you care about social justice, if you care about improving social mobility, tackling poverty…

…then it follows that you must care about democratic reform.

Constitutional reform is one of the hardest tasks a government can face.

It requires vision and courage to take on the vested interests within one’s own party and government.

But, as Jack Straw says in the report, ‘democracy is about giving power to those you disagree with.’

What I would like to see is not simply a process of giving power to those the government disagrees with.

But a process of giving power back to the people.

Back where it belongs.

By reasserting the sovereignty of Parliament, devolving more power to local government and enabling citizens to hold their representatives to account.

But parties should not only speak amongst and between themselves.

All of us interested in making change happen need to engage the public in the debate and spread the word.

That is why today, I am announcing an initiative to use new technology to bring these pressing political issues to a wider audience.

In the week before the three party conferences in the autumn, the Liberal Democrats will hold a virtual conference on the Power Commission proposals.

I would like to invite everyone – with any political affiliation or none – to take part in this discussion about the POWER analysis and to take advantage of the online discussion forums which we will make available through links with our party website.

We need to show the sceptics that the task is urgent.

We need to show that failure cannot be tolerated.

It is 174 years since the Great Reform Act of 1832.

The progress that has become the mark of our democratic society since that day has stalled.

It must be reinvigorated.

more … ]]> Ming Campbell talks to Nicola Davies and Liz Barker about the women who have influenced him in his life and about his desire to see a more representative House of Commons:
Ming Campbell talks to Nicola Davies and Liz Barker about the women who have influenced him in his life
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