The Liberal Democratic Party at its annual conference has voted down a motion calling for a referendum on the right of the people to choose their own head of state. Party leader Charles Kennedy had opposed the motion on the grounds that other issues were more urgent.
Some speakers at the conference said that opposition to the feudal institution of monarchy would be used against the party by newspapers and the Labour Party. However, deputy party leader Menzies Campbell told the BBC that he would prefer a hereditary head of state as long as the monarch was less ostentatious than at present.