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| Charles Kennedy's death was a tragic waste of talent. Let compassion be his legacy | Charles Kennedy's death was a tragic waste of talent. Let compassion be his legacy |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| When I think of Charlie Kennedy, it’s his hands that I remember. There’d usually be a cigarette dangling from one of them; back before the smoking ban, chats in his Westminster office were usually conducted through a thick blue haze. But what really struck me, the first time I interviewed him at length, was that his hands were trembling. | |
| I couldn’t work out if it was nerves – we were discussing Iraq, the biggest judgment call of his career and one that at the time seemed to leave him dangerously exposed – or a hangover, although in retrospect perhaps the two were related. Many comedians drink to maintain the easy confidence that everyone assumes comes naturally. | I couldn’t work out if it was nerves – we were discussing Iraq, the biggest judgment call of his career and one that at the time seemed to leave him dangerously exposed – or a hangover, although in retrospect perhaps the two were related. Many comedians drink to maintain the easy confidence that everyone assumes comes naturally. |
| But whatever it was, only the hands gave it away. The voice was calm, the arguments fluent, the judgment sharp as a knife. Charles Kennedy was a more far-sighted politician, even in drink, than many will ever be sober, and that’s what’s so cruelly frustrating about his death at 55; that he can never now become what he was capable of becoming. His death is a personal tragedy for family and friends, but even for those who never met him nor sympathised with his politics, there is something horribly poignant about a talent wasted. | |
| Charles Kennedy was a more far-sighted politician, even in drink, than many will ever be sober | Charles Kennedy was a more far-sighted politician, even in drink, than many will ever be sober |
| It’s easy to forget, now that the world and his dog insists they always knew Iraq didn’t have WMD, what courage it took to come out against the war in 2003 when public opinion was oddly less clear-cut. Kennedy did it in the teeth of opposition from some very senior colleagues who felt he should, at the very least, sit on the fence; who sniped behind his back about whether joining stop-the-war marches was statesmanlike. He did it knowing that if the invasion turned out to be the easy success many predicted, his reputation might not recover. | |
| Twice in his life Kennedy stood isolated on what looked like the wrong side of career-defining arguments: once in 2003 over Iraq and again in 2010, when he was the sole Liberal Democrat MP to vote against entering coalition with David Cameron. Some will say history twice proved him right but perhaps more accurately it twice proved him on the electorally successful side, which for a politician is much less grudging praise than it sounds. | Twice in his life Kennedy stood isolated on what looked like the wrong side of career-defining arguments: once in 2003 over Iraq and again in 2010, when he was the sole Liberal Democrat MP to vote against entering coalition with David Cameron. Some will say history twice proved him right but perhaps more accurately it twice proved him on the electorally successful side, which for a politician is much less grudging praise than it sounds. |
| When he was forced from office in January 2006, Kennedy had just obtained the best Liberal election result since 1923: 62 seats, up from 46 when he became leader. The result reflected not just his personal charm and gentleness – he had the knack of never sounding like a career politician even after 30 years at Westminster – but personal bravery too. Few could have felt it more acutely when so many of those left-leaning voters he won over from Labour abandoned the party in 2010, reeling in disgust from the decision to go into coalition. It is anyone’s guess when, or if, his party will regain that lost ground. | |
| Yet while his death will cast a long and emotive shadow over the current Liberal Democrat leadership contest, it’s too crude to draw from him the lesson that the party succeeds simply by tacking relentlessly left. What marked Kennedy out from Paddy Ashdown before him or Nick Clegg after him (poor Menzies Campbell did not last long enough to be marked for much) was a deep suspicion of getting too close to either main party – whether in the sort of grand reunion of the left proposed by Tony Blair, or in right-wing coalition with Cameron. He believed fiercely in liberalism as something quite distinct from any other political creed; found ways to dramatise those differences which were right for his particular time; and above all was unafraid to defy a public mood which is often shallower than the public will admit. | Yet while his death will cast a long and emotive shadow over the current Liberal Democrat leadership contest, it’s too crude to draw from him the lesson that the party succeeds simply by tacking relentlessly left. What marked Kennedy out from Paddy Ashdown before him or Nick Clegg after him (poor Menzies Campbell did not last long enough to be marked for much) was a deep suspicion of getting too close to either main party – whether in the sort of grand reunion of the left proposed by Tony Blair, or in right-wing coalition with Cameron. He believed fiercely in liberalism as something quite distinct from any other political creed; found ways to dramatise those differences which were right for his particular time; and above all was unafraid to defy a public mood which is often shallower than the public will admit. |
| Related: Shirley Williams backs Norman Lamb as Lib Dem leader | Related: Shirley Williams backs Norman Lamb as Lib Dem leader |
| And yet the worst thing about the messy, graceless way he was ousted early in 2006 is that it had become inevitable. Kennedy was always cheerfully shambolic and, when I spent a day with him on the campaign trail a few months earlier, I wasn’t surprised when he pitched up so late for our early morning train to Norfolk that we nearly missed it. | And yet the worst thing about the messy, graceless way he was ousted early in 2006 is that it had become inevitable. Kennedy was always cheerfully shambolic and, when I spent a day with him on the campaign trail a few months earlier, I wasn’t surprised when he pitched up so late for our early morning train to Norfolk that we nearly missed it. |
| But he seemed oddly hunched, withdrawn, going through the motions. Something felt wrong. Things started to happen that couldn’t be easily explained – absences from high-profile appearances, erratic behaviour – and friends grew uncharacteristically irritable when pressed about that, as if searching for ways to protect him without lying. Too many people came under too much pressure to cover up for him and when Cameron, the first electorally credible Tory leader in a decade, succeeded Michael Howard in December 2005 his party’s patience with its leader swiftly ran out. He got the big career judgments right; it was everyday life that defeated him. | |
| Many Liberal Democrats, I suspect, will be wondering today if there wasn’t some possible intervention they missed, or at least a better way in future of ensuring that politicians don’t self-destruct. As the SNP’s Alex Salmond has pointed out, Westminster is the worst place in the world for anyone with personal demons, combining a late-night boozing culture (although it’s infinitely more sober now than it was in the “two-bottle lunch” days of 1997, when I started out as a reporter) with loneliness, exhaustion, intense pressure and being far from home. Depression, divorce and dependency can engulf even old hands – and when Kennedy was elected, he was a 23-year-old from a remote Scottish farming community who’d only been to London twice before. While all of this is more openly discussed now than a decade ago, thanks partly to individual MPs bravely speaking up about their experience of mental illness, the Commons could do more to support vulnerable members – particularly when they lose their seats. | Many Liberal Democrats, I suspect, will be wondering today if there wasn’t some possible intervention they missed, or at least a better way in future of ensuring that politicians don’t self-destruct. As the SNP’s Alex Salmond has pointed out, Westminster is the worst place in the world for anyone with personal demons, combining a late-night boozing culture (although it’s infinitely more sober now than it was in the “two-bottle lunch” days of 1997, when I started out as a reporter) with loneliness, exhaustion, intense pressure and being far from home. Depression, divorce and dependency can engulf even old hands – and when Kennedy was elected, he was a 23-year-old from a remote Scottish farming community who’d only been to London twice before. While all of this is more openly discussed now than a decade ago, thanks partly to individual MPs bravely speaking up about their experience of mental illness, the Commons could do more to support vulnerable members – particularly when they lose their seats. |
| But it’s not just about the House of Commons, is it? All those people getting cheap laughs on social media out of Kennedy’s last erratic performance on the BBC’s Question Time, or rejoicing in his defeat on election night, were just a visible example of a culture which not only stigmatises people with mental health problems but treats public figures – politicians or otherwise – as if they were somehow less than human. If Charles Kennedy’s death leads one or two to pause before unleashing mob scorn or fury, if it prompts an ounce more compassion for people whose lives might well be more complicated than they look – well, a fine liberal legacy that would be. |