Charles Kennedy

Charles Peter Kennedy (25 November 1959 – 1 June 2015) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1999 to 2006, and was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ross, Skye and Lochaber from 1983 to 2015.

Kennedy was born on 25 November 1959 in the Scottish Highlands town of Inverness, the son of Mary and Ian Kennedy, and grew up in a remote crofter's cottage in the Highlands.

He had a Roman Catholic upbringing, and was educated at Lochaber High School in Fort William.

He went on to study for a Master of Arts degree in Politics and Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.

Kennedy first became politically active at university, where he joined the SDP as well as the Dialectic Society.

Between 1980 and 1981, Kennedy was President of the Glasgow University Union.

At the age of 15 he joined the Labour Party, followed in 1981 by the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP).

He won the Observer Mace debating competition in 1982, speaking with Clark McGinn.

Upon graduation in 1982, Kennedy went to work for BBC Scotland as a journalist.

He later received a Fulbright Fellowship which allowed him to carry out research at Indiana University in the United States.

Kennedy was elected to the House of Commons in 1983, and after the Alliance parties merged, became president of the Liberal Democrats and, following the resignation of Paddy Ashdown in August 1999, leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Two years later, Kennedy received the SDP nomination to stand for the Scottish seat of Ross, Cromarty and Skye—then held by the Conservative Hamish Gray—at the 1983 general election.

Kennedy won the seat with 13,528 votes (38.5%) and a majority of 1,704, unseating the incumbent Gray.

He was, at the age of 23, the youngest sitting Member of Parliament at the time he was elected to the House of Commons.

He served on the Social Services select committee from 1985 to 1987, retained his seat at the 1987 general election, and served on the Televising of Proceedings of the House select committee from 1987 to 1989.

He was the first of the five SDP MPs to support its merger with the Liberal Party (with which the SDP was co-operating in the SDP–Liberal Alliance) because of pressure from Liberal activists in his constituency.

The parties merged in 1988, forming the Social and Liberal Democratic Party, later renamed the Liberal Democrats; Kennedy was a proponent of the merge.

Kennedy moved into frontbench politics in 1989, becoming the party's spokesperson for health.

He was president of the Liberal Democrats from 1990 to 1994, and Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the office of the Leader of the House of Commons from 1997 to 1999.

After retaining his seat in the 1992 general election he served as the spokesperson for foreign and Commonwealth affairs during the 1992–97 parliament.

He retained his seat in the 1997 general election and served on the Standards and Privileges select committee from 1997 to 1999.

Kennedy was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats on 9 August 1999, following the retirement of Paddy Ashdown.

He won 57% of the transferred vote under the alternative vote system, beating the runner-up Simon Hughes (43% of the transferred vote), Malcolm Bruce, Jackie Ballard and David Rendel.

In October of the same year he was sworn in as a Member of the Privy Council.

Kennedy's style of leadership was regarded as "conversational and companionable".

He was labelled "Chatshow Charlie" by some observers as a result of his appearances on the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You.

He led the party in the 2001 and 2005 general elections, increasing its number of seats in the House of Commons to their highest level since 1923, and led his party's opposition to the Iraq War.

A charismatic and affable speaker in public, he appeared extensively on television during his leadership.

During the latter stages of Kennedy's leadership, there was concern about both his leadership and his health.

In Kennedy's first campaign as leader, the 2001 general election, the Liberal Democrats won 52 seats with an 18.3% share of the vote; this was a 1.5% improvement in vote share (and an improvement of six seats) over the 1997 election, but smaller than the 25.4% vote share the SDP/Liberal Alliance had achieved in 1983, which won it 23 seats.

Kennedy led his party's opposition to the Iraq War, with all Liberal Democrats voting against or abstaining in the vote for the invasion of Iraq—the largest British party to do so.

In July 2002, Jeremy Paxman publicly apologised after asking Kennedy about his drinking in a television interview.

Reports emerged of Kennedy's ill-health in 2003 at the time of crucial debates on the Iraq War and following the 2004 Budget along with linked rumours of a drinking problem which were strenuously denied at the time by both Kennedy and his party.

The Times published an apology over a report it had made stating Kennedy had not taken part in that year's Budget debate because of excessive drinking.

From December 2005, some within the party were openly questioning his position and calling for a leadership election.

In April 2005, the launch of his party's manifesto for the 2005 general election was delayed because of the birth of his first child, with Menzies Campbell taking temporary charge as acting leader and covering Kennedy's campaign duties.

At the manifesto launch, on his first day back on the campaign trail after the birth, Kennedy struggled to remember the details of a key policy (replacing the Council Tax with a local income tax) at an early morning press conference, which he later blamed on a lack of sleep due to his new child.

On 5 January 2006, he was informed that ITN would be reporting that he had received treatment for alcoholism; he pre-empted the broadcast by admitting that he had had treatment, and resigned as leader the following day after receiving no support within the parliamentary party.

After Menzies Campbell succeeded him as leader, Kennedy remained in office as a backbench MP, where he voted against the formation of the Cameron–Clegg coalition.

He died less than a month after losing his seat in the House of Commons in 2015.