Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Charles Kennedy’s true legacy is the transformation of the Conservative party

Charles Kennedy’s true legacy is the transformation of the Conservative party

Given the choice between a drunken Charles Kennedy and a sober Sir Menzies Campbell — to adapt the Times’s famous comparison of George Brown and Harold Wilson — we now know that the Liberal Democrat high command chose the former. There were four frontbenchers gathered in a room in March 2004 when they received first-hand confirmation that they were indeed being led by an alcoholic. This explained his mysterious absences, his slurred words in morning meetings and general level of inactivity. So the quartet, including Sir Menzies, took a unanimous decision: to do nothing.

It mattered little. Leadership is not so important to today’s Lib Dems, who have become more of a shapeless organism than a structured political party, thriving in places where one would not expect. They do not need central direction. Since Mr Kennedy resigned (his party was too shambolic even to organise a decent coup) it has scored by-election successes that elude the Cameron Conservatives. While bad leadership was toxic for the Tories, Lib Dem activists have learnt to thrive on anarchy.

Just how much anarchy is evident in Charles Kennedy: A Tragic Flaw by Greg Hurst, a political journalist who has caused the Lib Dems too much trouble to be ignored. ‘I once suggested posting him the minutes of all our private meetings,’ Sir Menzies recently told me. ‘It would save the bother of all those leak inquiries.’ What his book exposes is more scandalous than a plot for a Kennedy assassination: that there was no plot at all, even while knowledge of the problem was widespread.

Any functional party would certainly have staged such a putsch. Mr Kennedy’s drinking was an open secret — albeit one which no journalist could prove. The rumours had spread so widely that, when he stood up in the Commons, Labour MPs opposite would taunt him by mimicking an alcoholic’s shaking hand.

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