{"id":92,"date":"2006-01-31T14:29:10","date_gmt":"2006-01-31T14:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.campbellcampaign.org\/2006\/01\/31\/applying-fresh-thinking-to-the-urgent-challenges-of-our-times\/"},"modified":"2006-01-31T15:00:30","modified_gmt":"2006-01-31T15:00:30","slug":"applying-fresh-thinking-to-the-urgent-challenges-of-our-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/2006\/01\/31\/applying-fresh-thinking-to-the-urgent-challenges-of-our-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Applying fresh thinking to the urgent challenges of our times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>January 31: Ming Campbell today launched a personal statement entitled &#8220;Policy Themes, Leadership Priorities&#8221; in which he identifies the most pressing challenges facing Britain today and how he, as leader, would tackle those issues.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When I joined this party we were not afraid of fresh thinking, of testing the boundaries of political debate, and challenging the fossilised thinking of the other parties. I am determined that we will become a party not of protest, but of Government, a party which changes Britain for the better.<\/p>\n<p>I believe that a modern Liberal Democrat party is better placed than any other to understand and address the most pressing challenges of our time:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the <strong><a href=\"\/policy-themes-leadership-priorities\/overcentralisation\/\">overbearing centralisation<\/a><\/strong> of public life in Britain, which has led to a pervasive feeling of individual powerlessness amongst its citizens, and to public services which still fail too many of the people they are supposed to serve;<\/li>\n<li>the absence of <strong><a href=\"\/policy-themes-leadership-priorities\/social-justice-promoting-opportunity\/\">social justice<\/a><\/strong>, with persistent levels of poverty and social immobility, which are simply unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours, and a tax system still biased against the poor;<\/li>\n<li>the unsettling <strong><a href=\"\/policy-themes-leadership-priorities\/globalisation-engaging-in-the-world\/\">effects of globalisation<\/a><\/strong> and the urgent need to rebuild confidence in the international rule of law;<\/li>\n<li>the threat of catastrophic <strong><a href=\"\/policy-themes-leadership-priorities\/cherishing-our-environment\/\">environmental degradation<\/a><\/strong> and the complex task of changing individual behaviour for the sake of the survival of the planet;<\/li>\n<li>the fundamental imperative of <strong><a href=\"\/policy-themes-leadership-priorities\/political-reform-civil-liberties\/\">reforming our outdated political institutions, and defending civil and individual rights<\/a><\/strong> at a time when Labour \u2013 and the Conservatives \u2013 are all too ready to abandon those hard won freedoms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are the urgent challenges of our times. <a href=\"\/policy-themes-leadership-priorities\/professional-leadership\/\">My leadership will focus relentlessly on applying fresh thinking to these issues<\/a>, drawing on our longstanding principles, and offering new solutions and answers to a British electorate weary of spin and managerial politics.<\/p>\n<p>This personal statement sets out in more specific terms how I would aim to deliver on those pledges.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.campbellcampaign.org\/policy-themes-leadership-priorities\/\">Read &#8220;Policy Themes, Leadership Priorities&#8221; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January 31: Ming Campbell today launched a personal statement entitled &#8220;Policy Themes, Leadership Priorities&#8221; in which he identifies the most pressing challenges facing Britain today and how he, as leader, would tackle those issues. When I joined this party we were not afraid of fresh thinking, of testing the boundaries of political debate, and challenging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-front-page"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mingcampbell.org.uk\/ccarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}