Tom Paine Festival - Sir Menzies Campbell

The Tom Paine Project’s Festival 2006 Lunchtime Lecture series has been a great success this year, and it is set to close on a high today when Sir Menzies Campbell gives his lecture. It is entitled A Liberal Britain in a Liberal World - and Viva Lewes can reveal that it will focus on civil liberties, and the erosion of rights and liberty under recent and forthcoming legislation. He will talk about the depletion of personal liberties and the Liberal Democrats' alternative vision which puts a rights-based legal system at its heart. Menzies Campbell will also use the opportunity to talk about the expected extradition of the "Natwest 3" on Thursday morning.

When asked by Viva Lewes what Tom Paine represents for him, Sir Menzies Campbell commented: "Tom Paine recognised the importance of rights as a means to protect the individual from coercion by the state. He recognised an inalienable worth in every human being and he sought to put that at the centre of their relationship with their government and fellow man. He stood by those views when it might have been easier to abandon them. That is a quality to which we should all aspire." Sir Menzies Campbell is one of the most respected and revered politicians of his generation. He is MP for North East Fife and has been the Leader of the Liberal Democrats since March 2006. However, athletics, not politics was his first love. He ran the 200m for the GB team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and held the British 100m record from 1967 to 1974. KA