Finally, after a combined total of about 18 hours of counting over 2 days, we have our 72nd MP. Angus MacDonald was confirmed as MP for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire a while ago.
Alex Cole-Hamilton was very happy indeed:
My heart is in the highlands today. The Liberal Democrats were all but wiped out in 2015, but that wasn’t the worst thing to happen to us that year. Weeks later we lost Charles Kennedy.
That the final act of this general election should see his old seat returned to Lib Dem hands and the care of Angus MacDonald is simply wonderful.
I’m overjoyed that Angus has become the sensational sixth Scottish Liberal Democrat MP.
Angus has shown that the Liberal Democrats are the strongest voice for the Highlands. He will focus on what really matters, such as getting you NHS care close to home, improving dangerous roads and fighting for a fair deal for the Highlands.
Millions of people have voted for change and put their trust in us, so our job now is to repay it in full and be their local champions.
Join the Liberal Democrats today and you can be part of the change in both Scotland and the UK.
In the 36 years the Liberal Democrats have existed as a political party, we have had eight leaders, and Mark Pack’s latest Never Mind the Bar Charts podcast offers an evaluation of one of those eight, Charles Kennedy (1999-2006). The podcast, featuring Mark chatting with the Liberal historian Duncan Brack, has just come out, and the timing is interesting.
Most of the information in it has long been in the public domain, and anyone who has read Greg Hurst’s biography of Kennedy – or, for that matter, mine of Nick Clegg – will find it a refresher rather than a revelation. What was a revelation, however, was just how similar the party’s situation is now compared with the 2001-05 parliament when Kennedy was at his peak.
There are of course some differences, notably that Kennedy’s 52 Lib Dem MPs elected in 2001 were in opposition to Labour, while the 11 Lib Dems elected in 2019 have been opposing the Conservatives. But there are some striking similarities, with some equally striking conclusions to be drawn.
Brack is a firm adherent to the conclusion Hurst drew: that alcoholism was not the cause of Kennedy’s downfall, rather he had no agenda for his leadership, and as he became more aware of this, his drinking got worse. Kennedy was a great communicator who had cut-through with the public because of his appearances on popular TV shows, but he had no clear idea of what he wanted to do with the party leadership, and never seemed to give any policy direction.
Pack takes this as read, and describes Kennedy’s approach to the 2005 general election as “muddled”. Numerically, it was the party’s most successful election, peaking at 62 MPs (up to 63 following a by-election in early 2006), but Pack says, “under those very favourable circumstances (notably the principled Lib Dem stance on the Iraq war), perhaps that was more of a missed opportunity.”
Twenty years ago today, Parliament was recalled to debate the 9/11 terror attacks. Charles Kennedy, our then leader, spoke with customary good sense. He spoke of the need for international organisations to rise to the occasion. He spoke of his concern at the way asylum seekers and immigrants were already starting to be demonised. Here is his speech in full:
On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I wholly associate the Liberal Democrats with the proper sentiments that have been expressed so well by the Prime Minister and by the new leader of the Conservative party—whom I congratulate despite the sad circumstances that coincide with his election—about the breathtaking nature of the savagery that we have witnessed in the United States. Many of our constituents and communities throughout our land, never mind the United States and the wider international community, will have been affected.
We all have a heavy heart today. As I listened to the Prime Minister, I thought back into history. Speaking in the House of Commons in very different circumstances, John Bright spoke of the sense that the angel of death was floating above the Chamber. There is no doubt that the angel of death is very much with us today.
I spent one of the happiest years of my life as a student in the mid-west of the United States, in Indiana, and I have been a fairly regular visitor back and forth to New York in the 20 years since then. Until I became a student in the United States, I did not understand how mid-west America feels divorced from east coast and west coast America. Speaking to friends—including one who once worked in one of the buildings that were attacked but who, just before the summer, was transferred further down Wall street and was therefore not afflicted by this terrible tragedy—I was struck by the remarkable extent to which middle America, east coast America and west coast America have become united as never before. We, a country on the other side of the Atlantic, must not underestimate that. We have to understand the scale of the shock and the unity that it has brought about in that great country and on that great continent.
Yesterday afternoon, in common with the Conservative party leader, the Prime Minister, the former Conservative party leader and other Members of Parliament, I went to sign the condolence book in Grosvenor square. It was remarkable to read the sentiments expressed there. There was a bouquet of flowers from a Polish ex-service man in the second world war, now domiciled in London. A family from Dagenham who had no connections with the United States wanted to say how sorry they were. American tourists here in London are bereft because they do not know what has happened to people they know, family or loved ones: they are without information.
Earlier today I joined Willie Rennie in calling on all parties in Scotland to commit to a zero-tolerance approach to abuse and to lead a respectful campaign.
In the course of the Scottish campaign to date a brick has been thrown at Scottish Liberal Democrat HQ and the new Labour Leader Anas Sarwar has been racially abused outside Holyrood.
It just isn’t how politics should be done.
It was also worryingly reminiscent of an attitude in the 2015 campaign which resulted in the unacceptable campaign of intimidation against Charles Kennedy. And if the reaction to BBC Alba’s recent documentary about Charles’ life showed me anything, it was that this sort of behaviour is as unpopular now as it was then.
We must never go back to those old divisions.
With social media playing an increasingly prominent role in elections, politicians can show they have learned the lessons of the past and send a clear message of the value we hold in open, honest and respectful debate.
Our democracy is at its best when it is open, inclusive and free from intimidation or abuse. That is what Charles believed. He understood the importance of disagreeing well with political opponents. So the Kennedy Commitments put these values into practice:
Publicly challenge and denounce derogatory, untrue, or hateful messages on social media.
To disagree well and treat my political opponents, journalists and the public with respect.
Run an honest campaign that does not permit character defamation, libel, or slander against political opponents.
Scottish Lib Dems and others have been tweeting about “Tearlach Ceannadach/Charles Kennedy: A Good Man Speaking” which will air on BBC Alba tonight at 21:00 and follow online “shortly afterwards”. There are already substantial clips and extensive photo galleries available on the BBC Alba website. We hope to carry a review of the programme later today.
18 years after the Iraq War protests we remember and honour our former leader, Charles Kennedy.
Charles was an outspoken and principled leader – may his example continue to inspire us in an uncertain and tumultuous world. pic.twitter.com/C3oNRvwlE2
“Support for Brexit is collapsing” screams an article from Business Insider back in June, noting that a majority of Brits want to stay in the EU. Good for us?
By Caron Lindsay
| Mon 25th November 2019 - 10:57 pm
On 25th November 1959, Charles Kennedy was born. He was raised near Fort William and went on to be elected as the SDP MP for Ross, Cromarty and Skye when he was just 23 in 1983.
He went on to become the second leader of the Liberal Democrats and was one of the most popular politicians in the UK. His easy-going public persona and his immense political courage won him many friends across and outside politics.
He was a passionate internationalist and European and totally committed to social justice. He talked about being a voice for the dispossessed who were being ignored by other parties.
He was one of the few to emerge from the deeply divisive referendum on Scottish independence with the respect and admiration of both sides. He argued with wit and wisdom for what he believed in and always showed respect for the other side. He was a great role model in the art of disagreeing well.
He had to show grace in the most vicious of situations. When he led the Liberal Democrats to oppose the war in Iraq in 2005, he was villified for it and treated with utter contempt in the Commons. A decade later, politicians from all sides paid heartfelt tribute to him when he died, too soon.
It’s four years today since we lost Charles Kennedy who died at the heartbreakingly young age of 55.
We miss his wit and wisdom so much.
It says so much about him that during the horrible atmosphere of the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, he was respected by both sides. We can only wonder what impact he would have made on the EU referendum.
He had the courage to do what was right – leading the opposition to the Iraq war in 2003, even when he was vilified in the Commons for doing so.
Just as the polls closed on EU Election day last week, Christine Jardine played Darren Martin’s tweet below to the assembled team in Edinburgh West.
By Caron Lindsay
| Fri 16th November 2018 - 11:55 am
In the last 3.5 years, so many people have wondered what Charles Kennedy would have had to say about Brexit and our fight against it. A European to his core, he would have been such a strong and credible voice for Remain in the referendum.
Our politics is so much the poorer for his absence and in this party, his loss is particularly acute. People across politics and outside politics had so much time for him.
We didn’t find out until after he died how close he was to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s Chief spin doctor. This was a relationship that transcended the fact that Charles was the leading opponent of the Iraq war.
Last night Alastair Campbell travelled to Fort William to give the annual Charles Kennedy Memorial Lecture.
He recalled when Charles asked him to think about running for Rector of Glasgow University when he stood down:
As his second term as Glasgow University Rector neared its end, he sounded me out as a possible successor. He said listen, your Dad was at Glasgow, your brother is the principal’s official piper, your name and your bagpipes give you a bit of Scottish cred, you get on with young people, and, you would love it.’
‘But Charles, what about Iraq?’
‘Oh, Iraq. Huh huh, yes, Iraq. I forgot you were part of all that, weren’t you? Ach well, not to worry.’
He touched on Brexit and what Charles would have made of it all:
On the day of his funeral, we were driving up to Fort William from Glasgow airport listening to the tributes across Good Morning Scotland. A constituent recalled asking him whether he intended to support or oppose the bedroom tax, and Charles saying he would oppose it. His reasoning was very simple. ‘It’s just wrong.’
And I think he would argue very strongly that it is just wrong if the government and Parliament press ahead with a course of action that they know is going to make people poorer, our country weaker, our standing in the world lower. I believe too he would have had no difficulty arguing against this notion that somehow it is anti-democratic to put the outcome of these negotiations back to the people, given the Brexit now on offer bears next to no relation to the false prospectus on which it was sold. MPs are there to lead not follow, and Charles would have led the argument that that far from it being anti-democratic to have a People’s Vote, it would be anti-democratic – just wrong– not to. So we keep fighting.
That wasn’t the main topic of his lecture though. He wanted to talk about mental health and addiction.
Few things have made me quite as angry as SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford’s revisionist interview in The Times (£)last weekend in which he claimed that the SNP’s vicious campaign against Charles Kennedy in 2015 was nothing to do with him and he was in fact the victim.
He said:
I did not enjoy the election campaign in 2015 but that was more to do with the characterisation of me from the Liberals. I’m not in any way blaming Charles, who was the MP. It was the campaign against me. It was pretty nasty.
Blackford objected to the Liberal Democrat literature which referred to him, accurately, as a banker from Edinburgh. While his supporters were going round being pretty blatant about Charles’ health problems and calling him a quisling. At the time former Labour minister Brian Wilson outlined some of the horrendous abuse Charles received on social media from Blackford’s allies:
Mr Smith sent at least 115 offensive tweets to Charles Kennedy between January and May as well as countless Facebook messages. He was not alone. A member of Charles’s constituency staff worked full-time on deleting abuse from his own social media sites. Any attempt to communicate on behalf of his own campaign met with another torrent of well-orchestrated poison.
When Charles asked for supporters to put posters in their windows, one Clare Robertson (if that is indeed his/her name) sneered: “Just put an empty whisky bottle in your window. It’s the same thing.”
Blackford also refers to a visit he made to Charles’ campaign office in Fort William:
What about the infamous episode, I ask, when you and some supporters were said to have burst into the Liberal Democrat campaign rooms and had a shouting match?
“That wasn’t the case,” says Mr Blackford. “I’d been in on several occasions. We even took some cake into them when we opened up our offices. I’d actually gone in to him because we’d had a public meeting the night before and I’d gone to see Charles to say, look, could you lay off this personal attack on us.
“With the benefit of hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, perhaps it would have been better not to do that, but that’s what happened and the Liberals have sought to characterise it in another way.”
On the day, in April 2015, we brought you the story of Blackford’s ill-tempered and aggressive visit to the campaign hq where he had a right go at young staff members.
It’s three years since we woke up to the awful news that Charles Kennedy had died. Just weeks earlier he had lost his seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber. A few days after that, he wrote this article for us:
I am very fond of political history. If nothing else, we can all reflect on and perhaps tell our grandchildren that we were there on “The night of long sgian dubhs!”
I would very much like to thank my home team. They have been so energetic, dedicated and selfless to the task. Indeed, with them, I would like to thank the very many over the years who have made possible the previous seven successful general election campaigns locally.
I spare a thought for, and this is true of so many constituencies, for members of staff. It is one thing for elected representatives to find themselves at the mercy of the electorate; it is quite something else for the other loyal and skilled people who, sadly, will in due course be searching for employment. I wish them well and stand ready to help. I am sure that their professionalism will stand them in good stead.
It has been the greatest privilege of my adult and public life to have served, for 32 years, as the Member of Parliament for our local Highlands and Islands communities. I would particularly like to thank the generation of voters, and then some, who have put their trust in me to carry out that role and its responsibilities.
Locally, I wish my successor the very best. The next House of Commons will have to finalise the Smith Commission package, giving effect to the referendum “Vow” over further powers. I am saddened not to be involved in that process.
However, from the perspective of the Highlands & Islands, the case for more powers being returned to us which have been lost to the Central Belt over the past five years, has to be heard as well.
On the national picture, I am indeed sorry to learn of Nick’s decision but respect entirely his characteristic sense of personal, political and party principle.
The eligible candidates must reflect with care and collectively before we rush into the best way forward – out of this political debris we must build with thought and care.
Nick, I do hope, will be able to contribute with gusto to the great European debate which is now looming.
It is one, as a Liberal Democrat, in which I wish to be actively engaged myself.
The next few years in politics will come down to a tale of two Unions – the UK and the EU. Despite all the difficult challenges ahead the Liberal Democrat voice must and will be heard.
We did so over Iraq; we can do so again. Let us relish the prospect.
Whether you agreed with him or not, Charles was almost universally loved in the party. Within a month of his ousting as party leader, he turned up in Dunfermline to hep Willie Rennie during his victorious by-election campaign. “We love you, Charlie” shouted a woman in the crowd.
Today’s angry politics sure could do with some of his wit and wisdom. During the horrible Scottish independence referendum, he was one of the few people liked by both sides.
In the Commons, a couple of days after he died, his son Donald watched as people from all over the House paid tribute. Here, courtesy of the Guardian, are some excerpts.
Just delving about in the Getty Images archive, I happened upon these great images of our current leader and some of our past leaders*. Please click on the images to read the captions.
As we have a 13-years-too-late mea culpa (but a big boy made him do it) from John Prescott, Alistair Carmichael writes for the Times about Parliament’s role in supporting the Iraq War.
He makes the very valid point that Parliament could have given Blair a much harder time, asking for more evidence, scrutinising every claim made, but they ducked it.
Too many of those who now say, “Of course, if I had known then what I know now …” must be challenged. For the most part they could not have known then what they know now because they were not prepared to ask the questions or to demand the evidence.
Attention focuses on the actions of the prime minister and government of the day and rightly so — they failed to do what they should have done. That is, however, equally true of the Conservative opposition. Where they should have questioned, they acquiesced. Where they should have demanded evidence, they accepted assertions. As a party of the establishment, they could not allow themselves to believe that the various arms of government would be embarking on a war without a sound basis in law.
I suspect that in the wall to wall coverage today, one big thing will be missing. There will be comparatively few mentions of the one UK party that opposed the war from the start. That would be the Liberal Democrats.
Taking an anti-war stance is a courageous thing. Charles Kennedy showed enormous courage and resolve in doing so. He was roundly abused, accused of not supporting our troops, called every traitorous name under the sun.
In fact, the Sun, as you would expect, heaped ire on him as this headline shows:
We should remember Charles Kennedy today, and how the press treated him. And how he has been vindicated. #Chilcotpic.twitter.com/Xi75yI3FRu
It was taking a huge risk, too. He suspected, but didn’t know, that they weren’t going to find weapons of mass destruction capable of reaching the UK in 45 minutes.
I felt huge pride in the party at the time.
Watch his speech to the anti-war rally on 15 February here.
Also worth watching is his full speech to the House of Commons during the debate on the Iraq War on 18 March 2003. I also include the text from Hansard. Note the the extent of the aggression from Conservatives, including one Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Fabricant, that he faced.
Note the manner of Charles’ intervention. He sticks to the facts and at the end acknowledges the Prime Minister’s sincerity even though he does not agree with him. In a highly charged atmosphere he kept his cool and made his case.
It goes without saying how much we miss him.
Following the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), I acknowledge with thanks, through him, to the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) and to all those concerned in all parties in this House, that an honest option has been discussed and agreed in a cross-party way. In the previous debate, the right hon. Gentleman made a powerful contribution to that cross-party basis, which needs to be heard and discussed rationally today.
Although it is sad that we have lost a very good Leader of the House, there is no doubt, having listened to his brilliant resignation statement in the House yesterday evening, that those of us who are supporting the cross-party amendment in the Lobby tonight, as I and my right hon. and hon. Friends will do, have gained a powerful additional advocate for the case that we are sincerely making.
Given the events of the past few days and the last few hours, there has been much understandable comment about the drama of the situation. In the next few hours and days, however, we are liable to see even more drama and trauma when what appears to be the inevitable military conflict against Iraq begins. Let us hope, as we all agree, that the conflict can be conducted as swiftly as possible, with the minimum of casualties: first and foremost, clearly, among our forces, but equally among innocent Iraqi civilians, with whom none of us has ever had any quarrel and who have suffered terribly under the despicable regime of Saddam Hussein.
Here is a flavour of what Charles Kennedy would have brought to this European referendum. Bold, passionate, principled stuff from the 2013 Glasgow conference.
He talked about his worry about opposing the Iraq War, that it could seriously damage the party – but it was the right thing to do and he was glad that we had done it.
What that episode proved to me was that you can take a distinct position which isn’t necessarily popular with everyone but marks you out and people can recognise your sincerity and honesty and make a case that none of the others are prepared to make.
If the voice of rational pro=Europeanism is going to be heard thee is only one place it can come from and it should be us and it will be us.
A year ago today, we woke up to the awful news that Charles Kennedy had died suddenly at the age of just 55.
That sense of shock and loss still feels very real.
Last night at his parish church in Caol, where his funeral was held, a stained glass window was unveiled in his memory. The artist who designed it, Pinkie Maclure, shared pictures of it on her Twitter account.
I thought it was a lovely idea and it was a great honour to be asked to make it.
“I was told to include the eagle and Ben Nevis, but they left the rest up to me.
I asked a bit more about his family and discovered his father used to play the fiddle in the church so I decided it would be nice to include some music as well as a fiddle.”
The window was made from handblown glass which was made to order in Germany.
It also includes Mr Kennedy’s name, the dates of his birth and death, his initials and bulrushes and violets which are symbols of humility.
It was devastating to lose someone who had been part of our lives for decades.
I had a chance to read this recently updated book while on holiday in West Africa. It is a remarkably fine volume. Painstakingly researched and impeccably sourced, it offers a skillfully balanced portrait of a remarkable and inspiring man. As the title suggests, the author does not hold back on the human frailties of its subject but these are, nevertheless, presented as part of a rounded, fair and endearing commentary. I feel this book helps us to inch forward a little further in understanding the rather enigmatic Charles Kennedy, while deconstructing a few myths along the way.
I’ll pick out a few parts of the book which particularly caught my attention:
In 2014, we faced European elections and a Scottish referendum. In 2016, we face Scottish Elections and an EU Referendum. On New Year’s Day, Charles Kennedy sent us his reflections on the year ahead. There is much in here that is relevant today, particularly the bit about being “bold to the point of fearlessness” about portraying our unique political optimism. It brought a tear to my eye reading it. He is so missed.
Locally and nationally 2014 is going to be a decisive one – not just for us Liberal Democrats but for Scotland, the UK and the European Union
I think Charles would have laughed. David Cameron was one of the last to arrive at his memorial service and walked down the aisle looking for a seat. The only one available was in a pew next to Nick Clegg. “Awkward,” said someone sitting next to me as the prime minister greeted his former coalition partner warmly and sat down.
Politics is a funny business in both senses of the word – bizarre and comic – and Charles Kennedy always had a keen sense of this. It was why the public warmed to him so strongly because he realised that the world that engaged him so passionately could strike ordinary people as strange or ridiculous. Acknowledging this was a way to bridge the gap and he was always very good on Have I Got News for You, irreverently answering questions using exaggerated political cliches or avoiding them entirely using absurd evasive euphemisms.
Five days before what would have been Charles Kennedy’s 56th birthday, Jim Wallace, who entered the Commons on the same day as Charles in 1983, delivered the inaugural Charles Kennedy Memorial Lecture in Fort William. Seeing Charles Kennedy and Memorial in the same sentence still freaks me out slightly. It feels very wrong.
Jim has very kindly provided us with a copy of his lecture so that those of us who couldn’t make it up to Fort William can hear what he had to say. His subject was Charles, the legacy he left of internationalism and an example of always conducting his politics with respect and how his values were shaped by his highland background. He talks about the challenges we now face as a party and how we can learn from Charles as we deal with the challenges we face.
Here is the lecture in full. It’s long, over 5000 words, but, do you know what, every single one is worth reading. Go make yourself nice cup of tea, put your feet up and enjoy.
In keeping with many public lectures in the Highlands, albeit of a somewhat different nature, I start with a text: from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 51, verse 1 –
Look unto the rock from which you are hewn.
It is an enormous privilege to have been asked this evening to deliver the inaugural Charles Kennedy memorial lecture; to speak about one of my closest friends in politics, Charles, and how his politics were shaped by his roots in this Highland community, and the Highland Liberal tradition.
This was no wake, this was a celebratory thanksgiving to the Charles Kennedy we knew and loved. Held, not in Westminster, but in Charles’ own London parish church – the Catholic Cathedral of St George, Southwark. As one Liberal Democrat peer wisely observed after the service – Charles would have liked that the residents of the Village of Westminster had had to come down to his manor here in Southwark.
So often with memorial services of people whom we have lost untimely there is a sense of what might have been. Instead this celebration marvelled at just how much Charles had achieved so young, and with apparent effortlessness. This was a welcome and deserved recollection of the character, the wit, the ascent and triumphs of Charles.
There were elements that were not highlights of the service – but rather illuminations of the brilliance, the reach and nature of Charles himself: Jim Naughtie (BBC World at One and Today) reflected just how special and unique a politician Charles was; Ian Hislop, at the request of the family, read the serious and challenging Death shall have no dominion by Dylan Thomas; and former Intern in Charles’ office, Eleanor Sanderson-Nash held the cathedral spell-bound with her performance of Vissi D’Arte, from Puccini’s Tosca (and evoked a spontaneous round of applause).
Leading politicians from all parties – but largely drawn from the Liberal Democrat family – gathered as a clan to remember, smile and laugh. But for me the real stand out feature that credits Charles the man, was the sheer number of Liberal Democrat former Westminster parliamentary staff in attendance. This was not just their affection for him, but the truth that Charles had noticed them in their time at Westminster. And so today they came in huge numbers to pay their respects. Prayers from Revd Canon Mark Soady for example – clergyman yes – colleague and friend yes – but longstanding front-line staffer of 4 Cowley Street, well known to Charles, who acknowledged all staff in HQ whenever he was there.
Many people, particularly those who weren’t able to make it to the Glasgow University event earlier in the summer, have expressed an interest in paying their respects to Charles if a London based event were also to be held. This has now been arranged and the details are:
3.30pm, Tuesday November 3rd, St George’s Cathedral, Lambeth Road, London, SE1 6HR
The event is open to all although, as seating may be limited, attendees are asked to confirm in advance by applying at:[email protected]
By Caron Lindsay
| Sun 27th September 2015 - 8:07 am
It still feels surreal and wrong to be attending a Charles Kennedy Memorial anything, but on Friday night I headed to Glasgow University Union to see the debate set up in his honour. After a gin and tonic in the beer bar, which, unlike in Charles’ day now plays intrusive music, I headed up to my seat in the gods. The floor of the chamber was filled with people in their bling and black tie who had been lucky enough to get tickets for the dinner which was to follow the proceedings.
The motion was
This House believes that the UK should remain within the European Union:
Speaking in favour were Scottish Cabinet Secretary for External Affairs Fiona Hyslop, our candidate for Edinburgh Western Alex Cole-Hamilton, theatrical Tory MEP Ian Duncan and Alistair, soon to be Lord, Darling. The opposition were made up of businessman John Mills, sociology professor Neil Davidson, Heather Whiteside, a former GUU Debates Convener and Graham Stringer MP.
Ming Campbell, wearing some pretty spectacular tartan trews, was in the chair.
By Caron Lindsay
| Fri 25th September 2015 - 6:00 pm
I’m on my way o Glasgow to attend a debate to be held in memory of Charles Kennedy. The subject will be one which was very close to his heart – “This house believes that the UK should remain within the European Union.”
The debate takes place in the very Chamber where Charles debated as a student. During his lifelong association with Glasgow University, he served as the Glasgow University Union’s President and, much later, for an unprecedented two terms as the University’s Rector.
It’s just over three months since Charles Kennedy died suddenly. Yesterday his partner Carole MacDonald spoke for the first time to the Sunday Times (£). In a very moving interview, she said that what upset her in the days following his death was the idea that he was a tortured, sad soul.
They made out that Charlie was this tortured individual and that angered me,” she says. “I didn’t think they knew him particularly well. Yes, there were issues but he wasn’t tormented. There weren’t two sides to him. He was very considerate, gentle and non-confrontational. What you saw in public was the way he was in private.”
She also wanted to make it very clear that although the election campaign had been pretty bruising, Charles’ defeat had nothing to do with his death.
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