Tributes to Charles Kennedy

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

Charles Kennedy was one of those people everyone remembers meeting for the first time: his distinctive look, his very attractive highland accent, his unusual and warm manner as a politician. I remember meeting him very excitedly as a new prospective parliamentary candidate, and I was touched at how genuine this great figure of liberalism who I was finally getting to meet actually was. He wanted to know how I was and how things were going in Leeds.

I was very lucky during the 2005 election campaign to have not one but two visits from Charles. The first was to an older people’s residence, Teal Beck Court and Teal Beck House in Otley. The second was a rally at Headingley stadium towards the end of the campaign, when it appeared that I might make the breakthrough for the Liberal Democrats in Leeds. On both occasions, Charles lit up the room when he walked in. At the rally, he inspired people to go out and do that bit more over the last 24 hours to win the seat. But it was the ordinary people, not the party activists, who were particularly touched by Charles and his natural style and the way that he engaged so humbly with the older residents, the hard-working care staff at the home and people at the rugby and cricket ground. Everyone commented, “Isn’t he such a nice bloke?” and they were surprised that a party leader could be such.

I am very proud that I was elected in 2005, with Charles Kennedy as a great leader of my party, in what was the best ever result for the Liberal Democrats—something that we will not forget. I was doubly overjoyed when Charles became a new father, with the joyous news, albeit rather inconveniently timed, of Donald’s birth in the general election campaign. A few months later, I had my first child, my daughter Isabel. Charles and I would meet and chat and, sometimes a little tired from having been up, would talk new-father talk about how we were getting on, and Charles always asked and always cared.

Charles was a truly genuine, warm and humble man, and he always asked how people were and how their family was before he got on to politics. My sincere condolences go to his family and his friends and all who knew him. They are in our thoughts and our prayers, and as has already been expressed, I hope that the genuine outflowing of tributes to Charles is some comfort at this very difficult time. As one of the eight Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament, rather than 62 in 2005, I want to say that we now have the job of restoring the Liberal Democrats to where Charles took us in 2005. That is what Charles would have wanted, and it is what we will work and strive to do.