Kennedy keeps fighting
This year’s general election success was “only a foretaste” of what was to come for the Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy insisted today.
He rejected criticism over his leadership and the failure of the Lib Dems to take more seats in May against a background of public concern about Iraq and a Tory party in disarray.
And the Lib Dem leader insisted he still believed the party could get into power, saying: “This is certainly not as good as it gets. It is about getting into power. That’s the ambition I have for this party.”
Speaking to delegates at the annual conference in Blackpool, Mr Kennedy welcomed what he saw as a broader range of issues on which the Lib Dems fought compared to past elections.
Facing criticism from the floor about his public image, Mr Kennedy insisted that in relation to the other political leaders – which he admitted was not much of a comparison – he was a “considerable net asset”.
And he refused to admit that after three electoral defeats, and the recent birth of his baby daughter, he was becoming tired of the job of leading the Lib Dems.
Liberal Democrat values were now central to British politics, he said, citing issues such as electoral reform, civil liberties and the environment that were Lib Dem policies “long before they were fashionable”.
The “chemistry” of the party had now changed, Mr Kennedy continued, as more and more of its members took office in local councils around the country.
And it was because of this change that he refused to countenance a future coalition with the Tories, an idea mooted by Treasury spokesman Vince Cable last week.
The Lib Dem leader insisted he was “a cooperationist”, having shared pro-European platforms with Ken Clarke and Robin Cook.
But it was difficult to predict a future with a Conservative party that did not know who its next leader would be, and whose views “keep changing”. In addition, Mr Kennedy noted that they often “took exactly the wrong decisions”, such as on Iraq.
“We have spent so much time establishing the absolute independence of this party – the last thing I would recommend now is to start speculating about compromising our independence. This would blunt our message and thwart our ambitions,” he said.
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