In October 2007, Menzies Campbell Resigned As Leader of the Liberal Democrats After Just Nineteen Months in the Post

CampbEll AS LEadER In October 2007, Menzies Campbell resigned as Leader of the Liberal Democrats after just nineteen months in the post. On page 45 we carry a review of his autobiography. In July of this year Journal Editor Duncan Brack interviewed him with a view to supplementing the story told in the book. 38 Journal of Liberal History 60 Autumn 2008 CampbEll AS LEadER Q: Your autobiography has relatively both socialists. So I suppose it school when he was fourteen; little to say about why you became was a series of factors: being his first job was as an office boy and remain a Liberal, apart from more politically aware, being in a tea import company. That being attracted by Jo Grimond and attracted by Jo Grimond, seeing was thought by his parents not the Liberal position on Suez. Can what some thought might be a to be a very stable existence, you say more about why you joined Liberal renaissance, reading John so he went and he served his the party? Stuart Mill, and not wanting to apprenticeship as a joiner, and he MC: My parents were both do what might be expected of worked on one of the ships that Labour – neither of them were me – none of these was of itself was built on Clydeside as part of activists, I think their member- the compelling factor, but taken the effort to deal with the worst ships had probably lapsed by the together I joined the Liberals. of the recession. His brother was time I was a teenager, but they Political debating was the a great ladies’ man and used to did talk a lot about politics. And thing at university. There was go to the dance halls, but my the first thing I was conscious of a kind of progression: first-year father went to night school; was Suez in 1956; I remember students had to make their mark, and eventually he had his own thinking, because there were then you had to try and become business. As for my mother, her National Servicemen at Suez Treasurer of the political club, friends and contemporaries say and I was fifteen, that three years and then Secretary, and then you she could have played hockey for later and it could have been me. would lead it in your fourth year. Scotland: she was a very good That was a seminal moment for And so I got on to that treadmill sportswoman. So when I was British politics: this was the lion – although I was the only politi- growing up, there was a feeling pretending to roar but having cally active student who was on that they were doing their best no claws and sounding rather the running track as much as I for me; there was a sense of duty hoarse; and of course it brought was in the debating chamber, about making the most of it. the end of Anthony Eden. For and from time to time the two So that’s what I think a Liberal Britain it was the end of the were not entirely in sync. So, society should provide: it should immediate post-war era, some- that’s why … and I just felt natu- offer opportunity for those who thing of a watershed. And lo and rally sympathetic and at home; are lucky enough to have the tal- behold, bestriding all this was Jo I sometimes refer to it as gut ent, and it should offer support Grimond who, it seemed to me, Liberalism. for those who need it. And the was the person who spoke out Q: How would you describe that overall arching cement that binds most effectively and charismati- if someone asked you to sum it up in it all together should be freedom, cally. There was the Torrington a sentence? What are the values of individual liberty and human by-election, too; I remember gut Liberalism? rights – and internationalism. schoolboys shouting ‘remember MC: Individual freedom; per- Q: Although they’re not as wide Torrington!’ It did seem that sonal liberty; opportunity. This as journalists pretend, there are some under Jo, Liberalism was going is the way I put it in the book: ‘I differences between the so-called ‘eco- to have a renaissance. Then I count myself to have had a privi- Left: Menzies nomic liberals’ and ‘social liberals’ in went to university, and politics leged life in which opportunity Campbell during the Lib Dems. Where would you was the fashionable activity for has always played a significant his leader’s put yourself in the party now? students at the time. I used to part. I see my life as one of expe- speech at the MC: I tried to argue dur- say that my first serious act of rience and not of achievement.’ Liberal Democrat ing my leadership that this was rebellion was to join the Liberal Those two sentences have to conference an artificial distinction. I mean, autumn 2006 Party, because my parents were be read together. My father left there’s no intrinsic merit in Journal of Liberal History 60 Autumn 2008 39 campbEll AS LEadER taxation, any more than there’s part of the suits. And I was a sup- So, there you stood for the leadership in 1999? intrinsic merit in nuclear weap- porter of David Steel’s, of course, After all, although Charles Kennedy ons; it’s what the consequences who would have been regarded are: strong looked unbeatable at the start of the are that is important. Taxation as being on the right of the party on defence, campaign, Simon Hughes’s campaign is only justified to the extent in some respects. But remember, almost caught him, and might have that it’s necessary to provide the he was Chairman of the Anti- strong on overtaken him if it had started earlier. quality of public services, par- Apartheid Movement, Presi- MC: I’d been ver y closely asso- ticularly health and education, dent of Shelter, and author of the civil liberties, ciated with the so-called ‘Project’; that a civilised society should Abortion Act of 1967. So, I’m I was one of the small group of embrace. Now I don’t know if answering your question by say- no taxation people to whom Paddy would that’s left- or right-wing; but it’s ing that I do not think it is easy for taxation’s talk before he went to meet Blair certainly always been my view to characterise people within our and to whom he would come that there is no point taxing for party as necessarily left and right. sake. back and report. And it seemed taxing’s sake. On individual free- Q: You don’t say much about to me that although the party dom, on the British spectrum I your period as Chair of the Scottish may not have known just how suppose I would be regarded Liberal Party, from 1975 to 1977, far these discussions had gone on, as being strongly on the left – apart from stabilising its finances. nonetheless by 1999 they knew though within our own party What do you think you achieved in more or less what had been hap- the spectrum may not be exactly this period? pening and they were ready for the same. I was also robust on MC: It happened because something else. And it didn’t defence. I supported David Steel there was a palace revolution. In seem to me that someone who in all his trials and tribulations 1974, we’d fought almost every- had been so close as I had could over nuclear weapons. And actu- thing – 68, I think, out of the 71 provide that something else. ally, going back to Jo, the policy seats in Scotland, as part of the Also, the clear impression in Jo’s time was for a nuclear Thorpe strategy in the second was that Charles was way out deterrent, but a NATO nuclear election of ’74 – and we didn’t in front. I always assumed that deterrent to which the UK have the resources to do it. There his campaign was ready to run. would subscribe; and of course were people in tears because they He’d become President, he’d that’s in effect what has hap- never got what they were prom- been round the country, he was pened, because British nuclear ised from headquarters. So there well known, and very good on weapons are effectively assigned was a Young – or Middle-Aged the box. It seemed to me that he to NATO. So, I was always a – Turks’ revolution, of which I was unassailable. Don Foster and Grimondite, I always accepted was part. You ask me what I did Nick Harvey and I met several the utility of nuclear weapons. then. It’s a good question. I kept times under the chairmanship But that is not inconsistent with the ship afloat. It does seem to of Archy Kirkwood to deter- disarmament. I’m signed up to me that I have often been the mine whether one of us should the ‘Toward a Nuclear-Free coxswain in the lifeboat! We had stand, but in the end all three of World’ initiative put forward practically no money; we were us, for different reasons, decided by Shultz, Perry, Kissinger and bust until we developed an early that we wouldn’t and we then all Nunn, which Margaret Beck- form of the lottery. What I was gave our support to Charles. ett also supported, trying to put doing was holding the damn Also, because David and then some bite into the whole notion thing together – with a very Paddy had become such close of multilateral disarmament.

Load more