You can listen to the Guardian Unlimited interview with Ming Campbell on the subject of Guantanamo below (10 min 9 sec):

You can read the Guardian’s special reports on Guantanamo here.

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

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.

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We’re collecting questions from the public for Ming to answer on one of his podcasts.

All questions are welcome, although we can’t at this point guarantee to answer all of them due to limitations of time.

If we can’t answer your question in the first podcast, we’ll try to answer it in a subsequent podcast.

If you have a question for Ming, just call 07747 867259 at any time. Your question will be recorded and, if selected, played in the podcast.

June 20, 2006: Ming Campbell MP and Ed Davey MP discuss energy policy and the environment during their return from visiting Woking’s Combined Heat & Power (CHP) Plant and Woking Park Fuel Cell.

You can sign up for their podcast and listen to it on your MP3 player, or just click on the button below to listen to it now on your computer.

June 8, 2006: After 100 days as Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ming Campbell outlines his priorities for a Liberal Britain. If you would like to hear this speech, you can download it and listen to it on your MP3 player, or click on the button below.

In these last 100 days, I have not had much time for sledging with huskies nor for discussing suitable venues for croquet with my colleagues.

In these last 100 days, I have been getting down to work.

Bluntly, if the Liberal Democrats want to show the country that we are serious about power – we must reform our party.

Our Party has remained largely unchanged since we came together in 1988. Change is overdue, necessary and urgent.

In these last three months I have begun the task of implementing that change. Every decision taken now must advance our cause at the next general election and put us at the centre of events.

My leadership will not be judged by the short term pre-occupations of London commentators but by the long-term judgement of the British people.

I believe that given the Labour leadership – and deputy leadership – crisis, the general election could come as early as October next year.

That is why I am pleased to announce that at my invitation, Chris Rennard will chair our campaign. He is the man whom our opponents fear most. The work starts today.

I have already put in place five other key building blocks for success in that election.

First, I have appointed the strongest, youngest and most talented front bench team in the history of our party. A team which includes new talent like Nick Clegg, Julia Goldsworthy, Chris Huhne and Jo Swinson. This is a real A list not a Dinner Party list from Notting Hill

Second, Ed Davey, my choice to replace Tim Razzall as Chairman of the Campaigns and Communications Committee, is working to ensure that we run a powerful, modern national campaign. He has recently visited Canada and America. We will be applying best practice. We will utilise the unlimited potential of the internet: two thirds of Britons have the internet but only 60% of them vote. We will build up a supporters’ network from the millions who vote for us. They will be consulted on policy, brought into campaigns and asked to contribute their ideas. We will connect our Party directly with those who vote for us.

Third, we can only achieve our ambitions if the Liberal Democrats become the party of diversity and equality. We cannot represent Britain unless we are more representative of Britain. At the moment a party review is taking place of what more needs to be done to achieve this. But as a signal of my intent I have today written to the Chairs of all our local parties emphasising the priority I attach to diversity in candidate selection And made it clear that diversity will be a significant factor in determining how much central support is made available to local parties.

I have asked Steve Hitchins the former leader of Islington, to draw up proposals for a diversity fund to assist women, disabled, black and ethnic minority candidates to contest winnable seats for the party. He has a proven track record of implementing programmes for diversity and will report directly to me.

Fourth, I am committed to open, transparent and broad-based funding of the party. Just as it is wrong for Labour to be in hock to an improbable alliance of trade unions and millionaires and it is wrong for Conservatives to be in hock to multi-millionaires. We Liberal Democrats must show the way by developing a broader base of donations to fund our campaigning.

Fifth, if we are to be credible then we must above all be credible on policy. We must streamline our policy-making process to make it more responsive and immediate. Our Party Conference will always be the most important voice in determining our policies. But the conference committee is already looking at ways to professionalise the party conference and to make it more accessible to members of the public.

We will set up a Liberal Democrat Communications Agency consisting of some of our many supporters in the field of communications who will assist us with their advice.

I am determined that we will be fit to meet the political challenges of this Parliament and the general election.

I was pleased when Labour was elected in 1997. We shared much with the new government. A desire for democratic reform. A commitment to social justice. A belief in the United Nations.

Liberal Democrats supported the government’s spending increases in health and education. It was necessary to correct the under-investment of the Tory years.

But Labour has failed these great public services.

Failed to ensure that the money has been well spent.

Failed to allow the professionals to get on with the job they know best.

And all the time inequality has continued to grow.

Taxation is complex, stealthy and unfair.

Government is wasteful, inefficient and authoritarian.

Labour tramples on freedom at home and ignores international law abroad.

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