Charles Kennedy got a standing ovation at the start of his speech, and another at the end. But he was denied the special treat Lib Dem activists bestow upon their leader – a round of applause every 15 seconds. Still, the reception was warm, affectionate even.
He reminded us of his success – 1 million new Lib Dem voters between 2001 and 2005. He urged us to uphold the principles of social liberalism, and to limit the role of markets in our public service policies. He called for the House of Lords to be renamed and elected using Proportional Representation. He called for a Welsh Parliament, and north of the border he urged us to help the next First Minister of Scotland be a Liberal Democrat First Minister. He ended by pleading with us to be the party of Europe.
Alex Foster has more.
The conference management bestowed on him a rare honour indeed – when the traffic lights, which tell a speaker how long he has left, went from green to amber, they were switched off.
Some will say his parting words – “the best is yet to come” were both a rallying cry and a coded notice of a Kennedy return some day, and… some day, who knows? But not today.
He made no reference to the biography that was released today (that remarkably few delegates seem to have been prepared to fork out £19 for!), and only passing reference to his health difficulties.
Kennedy was embraced not as a leader in waiting, but as a charismatic backbencher with challenges in his personal life with which to do battle.
Exhibiting his tremendous oratorical skill, and outlining how he had been working with leading Liberals from Russia, we saw Charles Kennedy in a new role.
He became leader at a young age. If it is not a contradiction in terms, he has now become an elder statesman at a young age. To some extent the party’s conscience perhaps, a shadow of the late Conrad Russell.
What we saw today was no threat to the leadership, rather what we saw was Kennedy the ambassador. The party should, and will, embrace him in that capacity.
I said pretty much the above when I was interview on the PM programme at 5:25, Stephen Tall will have something to say on Sky News I’m sure. The dead tree and TV press have embraced bloggers as much as anyone could have hoped at conference.
Alex spoke to the membership to ask them what they thought of CK’s speech.
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[...] Half an hour before Charles’ speech a rumour started to circulate that he had refused to shake Ming Campbell’s hand at the end of his speech. [...]