Tributes to Charles Kennedy

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

The whole House will have been shocked, and so deeply saddened, by the sudden news yesterday morning of the death of Charles Kennedy. As you said, Mr Speaker, it is a tragic loss for his family, not least his son Donald, who is just 10 years old, and I know that the thoughts and prayers of the whole House are with his family and his friends at this time.

It is right that the House should come together and pay tribute to a man whose character and courage inspired us all, and who served his constituents so well for almost 32 years. There was something very special about Charles. As his good friend Alastair Campbell put it yesterday,

“He spoke fluent human, because he had humanity in every vein and every cell.”

Charles Kennedy will be remembered for his success, for his principle and intellect, and above all for his incredible warmth and good humour. I will say a word about each. Charles was elected as the youngest Member of Parliament in 1983, at just 23 years old. It was a remarkable victory. Standing for a new party while studying in America at the time, he went from fourth place to first, defeating an established Conservative who had been in the House of Commons for 13 years. From there, his political career took off. Just a year earlier, he had been asked by his careers adviser what he was going to do in his life. He had replied that he could be a teacher or a journalist, but if all else failed, there was always politics. On his election, his old careers adviser wrote to congratulate him, saying, “I can only presume that all else failed.”

The new Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye, as he then was, faced a number of challenges at the beginning of his parliamentary career. His arrival at Westminster was only the third time that he had been to London in his life. Arranging to stay in a friend’s spare room in Hammersmith, he remarked that he did not know how to get from Hammersmith to Westminster. In fact, it was worse than that: he did not even know how to get from Heathrow to Hammersmith.

Charles Kennedy played a pivotal role in bringing together two parties, the Social Democratic party and the Liberals, becoming president of the Liberal Democrats in 1990 and party leader from 1999 to 2006. As leader, he took the Liberal Democrats to the best election result for a third party in British politics for nearly 100 years. Back in 2003, he told Sue Lawley on “Desert Island Discs” that his ambition for his party was for it to find itself part of the government of the country. His achievements laid the foundations for that to happen, and, while he was never the greatest fan of the coalition and, indeed, voted against its formation, he never spoke out against the Liberal Democrat participation in it; for, as much as he was a man of strong views, he was also a man of great loyalty. He equally resisted any overtures from the Labour party, dismissing rumours that he would rejoin it by saying:

“I will go out of this world feet first with my Lib Dem membership card in my pocket.”

As ever with Charles Kennedy, he was a man of his word.

Charles Kennedy was also a man of great principle and great intellect. At the heart of his political views was a deep commitment to social justice. He passionately believed in Europe as a way of bringing people together, but his most outspoken contribution in recent years was the principled stand that he took against the Iraq war. Looking back, it is easy to forget just what a stand that was. He was taking abuse from the major parties on both sides of the House, and adopting a position that was not even supported by the previous leader of his own party. But there was something about the deeply respectful way in which he would conduct an argument: he did not believe in making enemies out of opponents, and he did not, as he put it,

“waste time just rubbishing everybody else.”

He made friends, even with those who disagreed with him, and I think that that was one of the reasons he was so liked and so widely supported in taking on the personal challenges that he faced. I had the privilege of getting to know him a little bit when I was a new MP back in 2001. We both frequented the Smoking Room, and, while we disagreed about many things, we both mourned its passing.

I find myself thinking today about just what an extraordinary talent Charles Kennedy was. All the while that he was battling his demons, he could make amazing speeches, delight a television audience, inspire his followers, take out his opponents with his brilliance in debate, and crack jokes—all at the same time. Above all, it is his warmth and good humour for which Charles will be remembered most fondly. He had a way of connecting with people—even those who did not know him well or even at all. In the tributes to Nelson Mandela in this House 18 months ago, Charles told us the story of their first meeting. He said he was introduced by his friend Lord Redesdale as a colleague from the House of Commons called Nigel Kennedy. As Charles remarked at the time:

“The President’s characteristically firm handshake and jovial welcome confirmed two things for me there and then. First of all, he had never heard of Nigel Kennedy, but far more distressingly, he sure as hell had not heard of me either.”—[Official Report, 9 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 20.]

He was the most human of politicians.

In the words of Charles Kennedy himself:

“The vast majority of people think there’s a hell of a lot more to life than just politics. And you’ve got to bear that in mind—because you’re actually trying to represent them.”

At his best he was the best that politics can be, and that is how we should remember him.