Ming Campbell tells Conference he wants a 'fairer' Britain

3.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Sun 5th Mar 2006

Crawley Councillor Gordon Seekings and Sir Menzies Cambell at the Harrogate Conference

Addressing the Liberal Democrats' Spring Conference at Harrogate the new leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, said he wants to create a fairer society. He thought that there had been too much attention on the policy of a 50% top tax rate, a policy scrapped after last year's election, but he would cut taxes for the poor without increasing the overall burden.

He also pledged fresh ideas, saying he wanted the party to be a rallying point for a new Liberal Britain. Sir Menzies attacked the managerial politics of the Conservatives and Labour saying: "We've had enough of Blairism. Let us pledge today that where we see unfairness we will challenge it; Where we see injustice we will attack it; And where we see prejudice we will confront it"

He attacked the outrage of Guantanamo Bay, mocking Mr Blair's description of it as an anomaly. "Once Westminster was the cradle of democracy; Under this government it is becoming the graveyard of democracy," Sir Menzies told delegates.

He said people who expected him to "tread water" as leader were in for a "rude shock". Over the next six months he will set out "key challenges and policy directions", he told delegates, on areas including the economy, the environment, welfare reform, better government, education and skills, crime and social policy.

He pointed to the recent Dunfermline by-election as an example of how the party can put recent difficulties behind it and still challenge both Labour and the Tories.

"Where we see unfairness we will challenge it; where we see injustice we will attack it; and where we see prejudice we will confront it."

Summing up his vision for the party, he said: "Let us pledge today that where we see unfairness we will challenge it; Where we see injustice we will attack it; And where we see prejudice we will confront it."

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Read Sir Menzies Campbell's speech in full.