London Evening Standard/London
Former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has died suddenly at the age of 55.
As tributes poured in from across the country, Prime Minister David Cameron hailed him as a “talented politician who has died too young”.
His LibDem colleague and former leader Nick Clegg said his death “robs Britain of one of the most gifted politicians of his generation”.
Kennedy, who was LibDem leader from 1999 to 2006, will go down in British history books as the political leader who opposed the Iraq War.
He lost his Ross, Skye and Lochaber parliamentary seat — which he had held since 1983, when he was just 23 — at the general election as the SNP swept the board in Scotland.
Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, who took the country to war in 2003, described his former opponent’s death as an “absolute tragedy”.
Blair’s deputy Lord Prescott said: “He proved to be right on Iraq. History will be as kind to him as he was to others. A great loss.”
Kennedy led his party to its best election result since the 1920s in 2005, when the LibDems won 62 seats, but resigned the following year and admitted he was receiving treatment for an alcohol problem.
His predecessor Lord Ashdown said that his election defeat had been “a great loss” and it came after the “blow” of his father Ian dying in April at 88.
Reflecting on Kennedy’s three decades in Parliament, the peer said that he “had his demons, we all have our demons, but on form and when he was on song Charles was the best of all of us”.
Police were called to Kennedy’s croft house in Fort William on Monday, after being alerted by the ambulance service. The cause of his death is not yet known but it is not thought to be suspicious.
A statement released on behalf of his family said: “It is with great sadness, and an enormous sense of shock, that we announce the death of Charles Kennedy. Charles died at home in Fort William on Monday. He was 55. We are obviously devastated at the loss. Charles was a fine man, a talented politician and a loving father to his young son. We ask therefore that the privacy of his family is respected in the coming days.”
Kennedy married public relations executive Sarah Gurling but after eight years they divorced in 2010. He leaves a son, Donald, 10, who was born during the 2005 general election campaign.
After taking a few days off for the birth, Kennedy said he was returning to the campaign trail with “a song in my heart and a spring in my step”.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Kennedy had “devoted his life to serving Scotland and his beloved Highlands”.
His political career began in the Social Democratic Party, winning the Ross, Cromarty and Skye seat in 1983 to become the youngest MP of the time.
But his leadership of the party was dogged by rumours that he was a heavy drinker and he was eventually forced to stand down by senior colleagues.
SNP MP Ian Blackford, who defeated Kennedy on May 7, told BBC radio: “We all can reflect on the man that we knew, a man that burst on to the political scene by winning the seat in 1983, a bright, breezy, articulate, gregarious, fun-loving man.
“All of us have flaws, none of us are perfect. It was just so desperate to see a man that struggled so much with the human frailties that we all have.”
