Kennedy Resigns
Charles Kennedy has resigned as Liberal Democrat leader.
In a statement at Lib Dem HQ, Mr Kennedy said he had been “inundated” with support from party members since admitting having a drink problem.
But it had become clear he did not have strong enough support among MPs and had decided to quit with immediate effect.
It comes after 25 MPs delivered an ultimatum saying they would refuse to serve on the Lib Dem front bench unless he resigned by Monday.
You can watch the video of his resignation here
I guess we all knew that this day was coming, sooner rather than later.
In someways I say that this has all come full circle. The Tories are now riding a wave with Cameron shaking things up and wellLabour as usual they are spinning a dream (no pun intended heh!) it seems inevitable to me that the Lib Dems should now have their spot of bother.
I commend Kennedy for admiting he had issues but as ever it slapped him in the face. I hope he gets everything sorted that kind of scrutiny is typical of the politcial back stabbing arena!
So what is the future for the Lib Dems now?
By the way, what does everyone make of Blair’s comments yesterday that Brown will be leading Labour next?
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“So what is the future for the Lib Dems now?”
That depends on which faction comes out on top; the social liberals (Simon Hughes etc) or the economic liberals (Orange Book types). How they square this circle will be interesting and a real challenge.
On Blairs comment, I reckon he’s sensed this could reflect badly on him if the two other parties have new leaders and he’s still around as the old man of politics. This is the second time this week he’s said that too so maybe it’s also a recognition of the growing panic within the Labour party…
I think they should skip a generation and choose Nick Clegg.
I’m finding it quite hard to care about this.
Nush – oh dear, linking to the Torygraph. How conservative of you.
Didnt our good ole Dubya have drinking problems?.. OTOH they should go for Nick Clegg.
Well Dubya had a D.U.I or two, don’t think you could call it a drinking problem.
You’re thinking about his daughter.
I don’t believe the lack of support was really symptomatic of factional divisions, but of MPs having had enough of Kennedy promising to them in private that he’s overcome his drink problem, then something happens which demonstrates he hasn’t done so, even recently as November I believe. I’m amazed it was kept so quiet.
This will be moderately damaging for the party in the short term. They attracted a fair number of voters who were put off by the consistent barrage of mud slinging and internal battles in the Labour and Conservative parties – the Lib Dems could say that they were above all of that…well now in fact they can’t and have shown themselves to be just as bad!
I say short term, because no doubt in the next few months, the media spotlight will just move on, the plot against Kennedy will be a distant memory, and one of the other parties will hit the news for another internal political plot – whether its Brown challenging Blair, or someone in the Tory party calling for a vote of non confidence against Cameron – and its difficult to tell which one will happen first!
And for the LDs, at least this happening now, rather than a year before the election. Menzies Campbell is a very intelligent and respectable character, I’d like to see him given a chance.
I suppose it was honourable of him to step down fairly quickly and minimize the damage.
May be he will be one of Cameron’s first Liberal defectors. May be he, rather than Hague, will stand in for him when Cameron goes on his paternity leave. If only politics were that interesting.
The Lib Dem MPs discussions around whether he should stay/go/run for re-election etc was a bit depressing. They all seemed to buy in to a mystical view of leadership and authority.
I don’t think he was an effective leader, regardless of his alcoholism, and if I was a Lib Dem, I ‘d almost definitely vote against him in a contest. But why should he not go through the democratic convention of being removed or reinstated through a membership vote?
Why does it damage a party for it to go through a voting process? The expense? In return they get some publicity and a chance to air issues. The chance of becoming divided? If you are so divided you can’t work with each other you should not be in the same party.
Sure, the Lib Dems aren’t alone in this – no one can publicly disagree with the party leader and remain on the front bench – all the main parties treat the public like we are so politically immature we have to be shielded from the true beliefs of our “representatives”. Let the media scream about divisions, but if it becomes a normal way of conducting politics with integrity, and if people have the maturity to work alongside people they disagree with in terms of tactics and strategy (though maybe not core values) then the charge of division would have no power.
To refuse to serve under him whatever the electoral result seems undemocratic, unless it is Kennedy who says that people who oppose his leadership cannot be on his front-bench. To ask one another to resign for the sake of the party is contradictory – surely the party decides what is in its interests by voting.
Arif,
As a lib-dem, I think you put the case perfectly. But he has gone now. not our finest hour.
I caught the news half way through last night, and I thought he’d died…
That’s exactly what I thought Arif.
What’s the problem with putting it to a vote? It’s made the leadership contenders look cowardly and slimey. But then that’s politicians for you.
Still, as a New Labour man — yeah, what you looking at? — it’s not my problem.
You guys have peaked. Because you are fighting a near-impossible war on two fronts — the kind that wooed a desperate and aggressive Germany into the improbable Schlieffen Plan in WW1.
You are all things to all people. You’re fucked. Your only hope is to abandon the Tory-Lib marginals and attack Labour in London. So I’m hoping slime-bucket supreme, whatshisface… Simon Hughes is not elected leader.
Mind you, if you put an ethnic candidate in Hackney North, you could establish a new beachhead. I’d even vote for you in an effort to get Diane Abbott out.
El Cid, I don’t think the other Lib Dems look cowardly or slimey, just that they are part of a political class which generally has an odd approach to “leadership”. As if the leader needs to be surrounded by an aura. They seem to have made their views clear to him in private for quite a while, and protected him while he was bumbling along ineffectively. In that sense they have been very patient and generous – which is my impression as someone who is not Lib Dem.
They give him far too much credit. They say he gave them a great haul of seats, as though he is single-handedly responsible. I guess we can never know what would have happened to them with a more articulate leader or someone with a clearer vision, or someone capable of taking clear messages when they are given to him by otherwise loyal colleagues – such as when it is time to encourage someone else to lead the party.
The Lib Dem, Tories and New Labour have so little differentiating them in terms of values. The Lib Dems still have some vote-losing commitments to civil liberties and international law, which I appreciate. Maybe I’d vote for them if they were led by Diane Abbott.
Sorry, I misread your post — thought you were LibDem.
I think they are cowardly and slimey because they waited in the shadows, hiding behind those 25 or so rebel MPs, unwilling to show their hand. Let’s not be naive, politics is a nasty business.
lol re Diane Abbott. Yeah, well your misguided choice. I can afford to send my kids to private school. Maybe I should. Fuck the state system.
I caught the news half way through last night, and I thought he’d died…
I was walking along a London street yesterday and had to think twice on reading the headline boards “Kennedy a Dead Man Walking”
There was a band called “The Dead Kennedys”.
“It’s a holiday in Camboida…..”
If this a Kennedy assassination, who was on the grassy knoll?
Have you guys seen the stabilised Zapruder film? Umm…let me find it…
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/0512/zapruder_-_stable.mov
I was watching the last episode of Rome last week. Showed the assasination of Ceaser.
Kind a saw some parallels with how old Charlie was assassinated.
Not that I am comparing the Liberal Democrats to the Roman Empire.
There’s me thinking that the lib dems were all cute fluffy bunnies. Turned out to be the killer bunnies as seen in the Search for the Holy Grail. Oh the eyes the red evil eyes.
New Lib dem, New Danger.
The only person I would like to see leading the Liberals is Evan Harris, but since that isn’t going to happen I would select Simon Hughes. The party has to make its mind up what it believes in – the free marketeering, minimise-the-state, neo-Thatcherism of the Orange book, or Simon Hughes’ social democracy. If they want to be a Thatcherite party they will lose a lot of support. Most of their high profile backers in the last election, and the people who voted them in in my constituency, are well to the left of the government.
You fancy Evan don’t you paul . cheeky .
Well lets see what happens although how exciting will this leadership race be?
*yawns*
although, Kennedy will still be on the front bench as his peers will give him that at the least (its been agreed collectively)
“I was watching the last episode of Rome last week. Showed the assasination of Ceaser.
Kind a saw some parallels with how old Charlie was assassinated. ”
lol oh that made me smile!
I have no idea what Harris looks like to be honest, I read about him, and we share membership of the National Secular Society. However, I think it unlikely that I would be attracted to a middle-aged man, that really would require a fundamental transformation on my part.
lol
Harris and the secular society is a very strange relationship. for one he’s a vocal advocator for israel and of a jewish religious homeland, as well as other personal religious causes. presumably he considers it be to a race and not a religion . still strange . oh he’s homosexual to and apparently a humanist as well. just about any old Anti wagon.
secularist will never gain ground against christianity and can only supplement people’s prejudices. as if there needs to be a non-religious conformity. its like pagans setting up their own rituals . sad. why bother.
’secularist will never gain ground against christianity and can only supplement people’s prejudices.’
Interesting claim. Why?
Quite an interesting debate. I don´t see this as a fight to the death between to wings of the party. Rather I think a lot of people in the party are looking how the ONE thing we care about (individuals who can fulfil their potential regardless of background) can be achieved through the right combination of
- targetted action by the state
- a performing economy.
Campbell is the frontruner on all this – but I have been following the debate from many Lib Dem MPS (more details on the blog).
two, obviously (what is it about writing on a computer?)