I have had 3 months of total silence on this blog. There was no particular reason for the silence but at my age, time does seem to slide by almost unnoticed. I was stimulated to write again today by the announcement of the death of former leader of the Liberal-Democrats, Charles Kennedy. He was a mere 55 years old. We don't yet know the cause of death but I suppose we must assume a heart attack until we have proper medical assessment. We know he has had problems with alcohol — indeed that was why he was forced from his post as party leader. But I have always felt that Charles Kennedy drunk was a much better leader than either of his successors — drunk or sober. Winston Churchill proved what could be achieved while consuming rather large volumes of alcohol.
I never met Charles Kennedy. I did meet two earlier leaders of the Liberal Party, Jo Grimond and Jeremy Thorpe. I met the latter soon after his election to Parliament for the first time as MP for North Devon in 1959. Those were heady days when there was much talk of a Liberal revival and there were notable by-election successes; Ludovic Kennedy just failed to win the seat of Rochdale and Eric Lubbock was sensationally successful in winning Orpington. I listened and talked to Jeremy Thorpe when he came to address the student's union at Leeds University in 1960 [I think]. He was quite impressive as a performer but he seemed slightly slippery — perhaps he was just behaving as a politician and lawyer]. Jo Grimond I met in the mid-sixties at Aberdeen Airport. Aberdeen Airport in those days didn't amount to much — before the North Sea oil boom had taken off and there were only a few people waiting in the very basic terminal building for a flight down to London. Mr Grimond had just flown in from his constituency [Orkney and Shetland] and was on his way to Westminster. It was a wet and windy day and we few passengers stayed in a well-sealed building awaiting the arriving aeroplane. Jo Grimond struck me at the time as looking like a slightly disorganized country parson — with a rather large hole in the heel of one of his woolen socks. But we chatted about instant coffees and motorway service stations and he was charming.
Charles Kennedy was the most successful leader of the Liberal-Democrats and his death is a great loss to public life. He lead his party to its greatest success in the election of 2005, when they won 62 seats — their best result since the Liberals in the 1920s. He was a a man who could make contact with ordinary people, lacked all pomposity and was able to laugh at himself and politics. He always seemed at ease when on TV and managed to combine TV appearances with his job as party leader. Famously, he stood out in public in opposing Tony Blair and the Iraq War. He was famously justified in this and no doubt this contributed greatly to his election success. .He also opposed the Liberal-Democrats going into a coalition government with the Tories. He appears to have been justified again in his opposition as his party has been absolutely destroyed at the general election. Nevertheless, throughout the last five years he was silent in his opposition and I think this was to his credit. The decimation of the Liberal-Democrats is, I think, more a result of the behaviour of the party while in government. Both Nick Clegg and Vince Cable were for ever rubbishing government policy while doing little justify their own performances. Only Danny Alexandre at the Treasury impressed. He may have had rows with George Osborne every day but none of it came out in public and they presented a united front. George Osborne praised him, thanking him for his support throughout five years in government after Danny Alexandre lost his seat at the election.
Like 85% of Liberal-Democrat MPs, Charles Kennedy lost his seat at the election. He represented the constituency of Ross, Skye and Lochaber for 32 years and was a much loved local man, living in Fort William. He was displaced at the election by the tidal wave of the Scottish Nationalists who swept all before them. Although collecting less than 1.5 million votes, they now have 56 MPs while the Liberal-Democrats, the Greens and UKIP who together collected 7.45 million votes managed only 10 seats between all three parties. I am sure that this ridiculous imbalance will come to haunt the parties at Westminster as the SNP's motley crew tries to disrupt government. It is the most distorted representation of the people in our history — according to the Electoral Reform Society.
Many people in Scotland were sad to see Charles Kennedy kicked out after so many years but yet they were prepared to vote for a Nationalist. The death of Charles Kennedy is great loss to all of us and everyone from the Prime Minister down has mourned his passing. Perhaps, he died of a broken heart?
I read a little story in the TMS column in The Times for 3rd June which told of Charles Kennedy in his final year at university in Glasgow spending time with a careers adviser who asked what he wanted to do in life. "I am not sure," said Charles Kennedy, "I like reading and people so I could be a teacher. Or possibly, a journalist." Politics was discussed as a last resort. A year later, he was elected as an MP at the age of 23 and received a letter from the careers adviser, which said "Dear Charles, I was delighted to hear the news of your election. I can only presume that all else failed"
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