Oaten confirms Lib Dem leadership challenge

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten today confirmed he would challenge Sir Menzies Campbell for the party leadership.

Mr Oaten, the MP for Winchester, told a Westminster news conference: " I'm formally announcing I will be a candidate for the leadership of this great party."

He said that since Charles Kennedy's resignation on Saturday "my office has been literally flooded with hundreds and hundreds of emails from party members up and down the country.

"They want a contest. It's my judgment also they would like to see me as a candidate.

"That's why this afternoon I'm formally announcing I will be a candidate for the leadership of this great party."

He said he wanted to lead the Lib Dems back to power and added he hoped the party's president, Simon Hughes, would join the contest.

"The reason why I want to lead this party is to modernise it, to create a truly 21st century Liberal party, a popular party which people out there in the country can associate with, with popular policies they want to vote for," he said.

"We need to do that by taking the very core values and principles which we hold dear to as Liberals and modernise them and make them relevant for today's voters."

He said they needed to take on both the Conservatives and Labour.

"It is time to take on toughly the nanny state Labour Party and I have shown that I can do that on the terrorism legislation and ID cards," he said.

"And it is time to expose the fake liberals that David Cameron is pretending to be because when you scrape the surface there it's still the same old Conservative Party."

Mr Oaten added: "I am up for this challenge. I believe I have the energy and the vision to lead this party."

He said it was 100 years since the Liberals were last in power.

"I am ambitious to get this party back into power again," he said.

He said the party had to modernise to get back into power.

"I believe I am a 21st century Liberal and I am determined to lead a 21st century Liberal party."

Mr Oaten said he had "great respect" for his rival Sir Menzies.

"I am delighted he is acting leader at the moment. He is a statesman, well regarded by the public, well regarded by the party," he said.

"What I'm arguing, however, is that we need long term politics.

"This is about getting us into power and I'm determined this party does it and it has a proper debate, a proper agenda about how we achieve that and that is what I'm determined to do in the months and the years ahead. "

Mr Oaten predicted that by the end of the leadership contest the Lib Dems would have regained the support lost in recent opinion polls.

"I'm absolutely clear that the public still have great support for this party," he said.

"We need to get across those policies, have a positive leadership election campaign."

That would be "a massive boost" to the party in the weeks ahead, he said.

"I believe there is a hunger out there for something different in politics. This party can deliver that."