Friday 5 June 2015

Malcolm Bruce on Charles Kennedy

I had resolved not to add to the flood of encomiums for Charles Kennedy beyond my initial response, but I felt I had to link to this article after Caron Lindsay drew attention to it on Liberal Democrat Voice. Not only was it written by the man I gave my first preference to in that 1999 party leadership election (I seem to recall that Charles was my number 3), a man who was a contemporary of Charles in parliament, but also because it crystallised Charles' philosophy:

Charles’ mentor [...] was Roy Jenkins, who took him under his wing and clearly saw him as a rising star. With him Charles drank at the fountain of the politics of social justice, reinforcing a lifelong commitment to reform and the European ideal.

Someone posted on Facebook that Charles Kennedy should be commemorated by compassion. A truer memorial would be progress on just one of those political causes he fought for. Sadly, practically all those tories and socialists who have been falling over themselves to praise him as a person are too ready to back-track on all of them.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Malcolm Bruce eh?
How do you know he's (by his own admission) telling the truth?

Frank Little said...

Nice one. All I can say is that he is no longer MP, so has no reason to lie. :-)