Author Archives: Conn O'Neill

Opinion: My year working for Charles Kennedy

By Conn O'Neill | Wed 3rd June 2015 - 12:57 pm

For just a year, I had the great honour of knowing Charles Kennedy. Through the most tumultuous times in Scottish politics, it was a pleasure to be by his side and to share in his insight.

In the short time I knew Charles, we only scratched the surface as he toldthe most wonderful anecdotes and yet I know I’ll be retelling a great many of them and talking about the time I spent with him for the rest of my lifetime. CK would always say that we, his team, were far keener than he to point out in literature his 32 years of service yet when travelling around the constituency there was no hiding from that long record of delivery. In every town we visited, there was living proof that in the Highlands, everybody knows somebody Charles helped.

On what Charles dubbed “the night of long sgian dubhs” of 7th/8th May at around 1.30am I made the short journey from the count to Charles’ hotel to confirm what he had already surmised, we had lost. He was more prepared than I, having watched majority after majority washed away by the SNP Tsunami. It was, he said, easier to go on a night in which so many others had fallen. Charles took defeat with all the good grace you would expect from a man of his standing. Before the public declaration, he congratulated his successor and enjoyed some snatched moments of somewhat dark humour with the Highland Lib Dem team.