Charles Peter Kennedy (25 November 1959 – 1 June 2015) was a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician, who was the Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1999 to 2006 and was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1983 to 2015, most recently for the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency.

At the 1983 general election, at the age of 23, he stood for Ross, Cromarty and Skye, then held by the Conservative Hamish Gray. In a shock result, Kennedy was elected for the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He quickly emerged as a potential party leader, and in 1994, after the SDP and Liberal Party had formally merged, he became President of the Liberal Democrats, a position he held for the next four years. In 1999, after the resignation of Paddy Ashdown, Kennedy was elected leader. He led the party through two general elections, during which time they increased their seats in the House of Commons from 46 to 62, the best Liberal result in a century.

During the latter stages of his leadership, there was considerable speculation regarding his alcohol consumption. From December 2005, some within the party were openly questioning his position and calling for a leadership election. On 5 January 2006, Kennedy was informed that ITN would be reporting that he had received treatment for a drinking problem. Kennedy decided to pre-empt the broadcast and admit his condition openly. He called a leadership election at the same time, stating that he intended to stand. The admission of a drinking problem had seriously damaged his standing and 25 MPs signed a statement urging him to resign immediately. Kennedy resigned on 7 January and was replaced by Menzies Campbell.

Early life

Born in Inverness and raised as a Roman Catholic, Kennedy was educated at Lochaber High School in Fort William.

Kennedy went on to study for a Master of Arts degree in Politics and Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. At university, he became politically active, joining the Social Democrats (SDP), as well as the Dialectic Society. In 1982, Kennedy won The Observer Mace debating competition, speaking with Clark McGinn.

Upon graduation in 1982, he went to work for BBC Scotland as a journalist. He later received a Fulbright Fellowship which allowed him to carry out research at Indiana University in the United States.

Member of Parliament

While studying in America, he received the Social Democratic Party (SDP) nomination for the Scottish seat of Ross, Cromarty and Skye, which he went on to win in 1983, becoming the youngest sitting Member of Parliament, aged 23. He retained the seat and its successor, Ross, Skye and Inverness West, at five subsequent general elections. He was, until 2015, the Liberal Democrat MP for the seat, which replaced it in 2005, Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

In the late 1980s, the SDP and the Liberal Party, which had been co-operating in the SDP–Liberal Alliance, merged to form the Social and Liberal Democratic Party, later renamed the Liberal Democrats. Kennedy was the first of the five SDP MPs to support the merger; in his book Time To Declare, David Owen suggested this was due to pressure from Liberal activists in his constituency.

Kennedy served as a frontbencher for the Lib Dems in a variety of posts, including social security, agriculture and rural affairs, health, Scotland and Europe. He was also party president for four years, between 1990 and 1994.

Leader of Liberal Democrats

On 9 August 1999, Kennedy was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats after the retirement of Paddy Ashdown; he beat Jackie Ballard, Malcolm Bruce, Simon Hughes and David Rendel. He won 57% of the transferred vote under the Alternative Vote system (Hughes, the runner-up, won 43% of the vote).

Kennedy's style of leadership differed from Ashdown's, being regarded as more conversational and laid back. Although he has been dismissed as "Chatshow Charlie" by some observers, as a result of his appearances on the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You (HIGNFY), opinion polls showed him to be regarded positively as a party leader and potential Prime Minister by a significant fraction of the British electorate. He had made many appearances on HIGNFY prior to his election as leader; and subsequently became the first serving leader of one of the three main parties to appear on the show. He then went on to be a guest host of it.

Kennedy maintained the long-standing aspiration for his party to break through to the status of official opposition. In his first major campaign, the 2001 general election, the Liberal Democrats improved their share of the vote to 18.3%, which was 1.5% more than in the 1997 election. Although this was a smaller share than the 25.4% the SDP/Liberal Alliance achieved in 1983, the Lib Dems won 52 seats compared to the Alliance's 23. In his last general election as leader, in May 2005, the Liberal Democrats won 62 seats, their greatest number of seats since the 1920s, gaining 22.1% of the vote.

Kennedy, along with his "election guru" Lord Rennard, targeted the Lib Dems' campaigning on a limited number of seats in such a way as to turn a lower level of national support into a greater number of Parliamentary seats. He extended this strategy at the 2005 General Election targeting the seats held by the most senior and/or highly regarded Conservative MPs, dubbed a "decapitation" strategy, with the expectation that without these "key" figures, the Conservatives would be discredited as the official Opposition allowing Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats to claim that they are the "effective Opposition".

However, this strategy is widely seen to have failed. At the 2005 General Election, the Liberal Democrats failed to unseat leading Conservatives such as the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Oliver Letwin, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, Shadow Secretary of State for the Family Theresa May and the Leader of the Opposition Michael Howard. The biggest "scalp" the Liberal Democrats managed to claim was that of the Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins in Westmorland and Lonsdale. This was one of only three seats the Liberal Democrats won from the Conservatives, the others being Solihull and Taunton. However, the Lib Dems lost more seats overall to the Conservatives, resulting in a net loss to the Conservatives. The net gain was instead made through winning significant numbers of seats from Labour.

At the same time, the Lib Dems also hoped to capture marginal Labour seats, attracting Labour voters (particularly Muslim voters) who were dissatisfied because of the invasion of Iraq, which Kennedy's party had opposed; the party had succeeded with this tactic in by-elections, taking Brent East and Leicester South from Labour. The Party did succeed to some extent in this aim, winning particularly in student areas such as Bristol, Cardiff and Manchester, but did not see the breakthrough some expected in areas with large Asian populations, even losing Leicester South.

At the 2005 election, the party succeeded in regaining the seat of Ceredigion, its first gain from the Welsh party Plaid Cymru. Overall Kennedy's party achieved a total of 62 seats, their highest number since 1923 with 22% of the overall vote. He heralded the Liberal Democrats as the "national party of the future".

However, this was significantly less than most observers had expected the party to win; just before the election, it had been anticipated by the media and opinion polls that the Liberal Democrats could win up to 100 seats and place them close to the Tories in terms of seats as well as votes.

In the wake of the general election, Kennedy's leadership came under increased criticism from those who felt that the Liberal Democrats could have surged forward, the official opposition Conservative Party being relatively weak. Many pointed the finger of blame at Kennedy for failing to widen the party's appeal. Others, like the former Deputy Chairman of the Federal Liberal Democrat Party, Donnachadh McCarthy, resigned, citing the party's shift to the right of the political spectrum under Kennedy in pursuit of Conservative votes.

In late 2005, speculation surrounding the leadership of the Liberal Democrats was widespread, with the journalist Andrew Neil claiming to speak "on good authority" that Kennedy would announce his resignation at the 2006 spring conference of the Liberal Democrats. Kennedy's spokeswoman denied the report and complained against the BBC, which had broadcast it. After the election of the more moderate David Cameron as Leader of the Conservative Party in December 2005, it was widely reported that senior members of the Liberal Democrats had told Kennedy that he must either "raise his game" or resign.

On 13 December 2005, the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, claimed that there were briefings against the leader, with members of his party unhappy at what they saw as 'lack of leadership' from Kennedy. A "Kennedy Must Go" petition was started by The Liberal magazine (a publication with no affiliation to the Liberal Democrats) and allegedly had been signed by over 3,300 party members including 386 local councillors and two MPs by the end of 2005. A round-robin letter signed by Liberal Democrat MPs rejecting his leadership received 23 signatures.

In 2004, The Times published an apology over a report it had made stating Kennedy had not taken part in that year's Budget debate due to excessive drinking.

On 6 January 2006, Kennedy was informed that ITN would be reporting that he had received treatment for alcoholism. He called a sudden news conference to make a personal statement confirming the story. He stated that over the past eighteen months he had been coming to terms with a drinking problem, but has sought ongoing professional help. He told reporters that recent questions among his colleagues about his suitability as leader were partly as a result of the drinking problem but stated that he had been dry for the past two months and would be calling a leadership contest to resolve the issues surrounding his authority once and for all.

It was later claimed that the source for ITN's story was his former press secretary turned ITV News correspondent, Daisy McAndrew.

Resignation and backbenches

At 3 p.m. on 7 January, Kennedy called a press conference at which he announced that while he was buoyed by the supportive messages he had received from grassroot members, he felt that he could not continue as leader because of the lack of confidence from the Parliamentary party. He said he would not be a candidate in the leadership election and was standing down as leader "with immediate effect", with Menzies Campbell to act as interim leader until a new leader was elected. He also confirmed in his resignation statement that he did not expect to remain on the Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team. He pledged his loyalty to a new leader as a backbencher, and wished to remain active in the party and in politics. His leadership had lasted slightly less than six years and five months.

Campbell went on to win the resulting leadership election, and Kennedy subsequently gave his successor full public support.

Following his resignation, Kennedy's first major political activity was to campaign in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, which the Liberal Democrats went on to win, taking the seat from Labour.

On 22 June 2006, Kennedy made his first appearance in the national media after stepping down as party leader when he appeared on the BBC's Question Time. One of the questions on the show was about his possible return as leader, which he declined to rule out.

On 4 August 2006, Kennedy hosted a documentary on Channel 4 about what he saw as the increasing disenchantment felt by voters towards the main parties in British politics due to their hesitation to discuss the big issues, especially at election time, and the ruthless targeting of swing-voters in key constituencies at the expense of the majority. He also contributed an article covering the same issues to The Guardian's Comment Is Free section.

On 29 August 2006, The Times began serialising a biography of Kennedy by the journalist Greg Hurst. The book claimed that senior Liberal Democrats, including the subsequent leader Menzies Campbell, had known about Kennedy's drinking problem when he was elected as leader in 1999 and had subsequently kept it hidden from the public.

After Campbell resigned as Liberal Democrat leader on 15 October 2007, Kennedy said that it was "highly unlikely" that he would try to return as party leader, but he did not rule it out completely.

Conservative-Lib Dem coalition

At the 2010 General Election, Kennedy was re-elected to parliament with a majority of 13,070.

Kennedy explained in an article for The Observer that he had voted against the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition "when it was presented to Liberal Democrat parliamentarians" and that he "did not subscribe to the view that remaining in opposition ourselves, while extending responsible 'confidence and supply' requirements to a minority Tory administration, was tantamount to a 'do nothing' response". Finally, Kennedy warned of the risks of "a subsequent assimilation within the Conservative fold", adding: "David Cameron has been here often before: from the early days of his leadership he was happy to describe himself as a 'liberal Conservative'. And we know he dislikes the term Tory. These ongoing efforts at appropriation are going to have to be watched".

The media reported on 21 August 2010 that Kennedy was about to defect from the Liberal Democrats to Labour in protest against his party's role in the coalition government's public spending cuts, but the Liberal Democrats were swift to deny these reports. Kennedy himself denied the rumours in an interview with The Mail on Sunday.

Kennedy played a role in the cross-party Better Together campaign, which was the pro-union campaign for the 2014 Scottish referendum on independence.

Kennedy lost his seat in the 2015 General Election amid UK-wide seat losses for the Liberal Democrats and a surge in support for the Scottish National Party.

Rector of University of Glasgow

In February 2008, Kennedy was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow and was officially installed, succeeding Mordechai Vanunu, on 10 April 2008. He won the election with a 46% share of vote, supported by not only his own Glasgow University Union but also the Queen Margaret Union and Glasgow University Sports Association. He was re-elected in February 2011, defeating one other candidate, writer A. L. Kennedy, by a clear margin. He served six years as rector until Edward Snowden was elected in February 2014.

Personal life

In July 2002, Kennedy married Sarah Gurling, the sister of his friend James Gurling.

Reports of Kennedy's ill-health in 2003 at the time of crucial debates on the Iraq War and after the 2004 Budget (his ill health meant he missed an entire Budget speech) and linked rumours of alcoholism, were strenuously denied at the time by both Kennedy and his party.

In April 2005, the launch of his party's manifesto for the 2005 General Election was delayed due to the birth of his first child, with Sir Menzies Campbell taking temporary charge as acting leader and covering Kennedy's campaign duties. At the manifesto launch, on his first day back on the campaign trail after the birth, Kennedy struggled to remember the details of a key policy (replacing the council tax with a local income tax) at an early morning press conference, which he later blamed on a lack of sleep due to his new child.

In July 2007, Kennedy was informally spoken to by the British Transport Police after he breached the smoking ban in England on a train.

On 9 August 2010, it was announced that Kennedy and his wife were to separate. Their divorce was granted on 9 December 2010.

Kennedy's father Ian, with whom he was close, died in April 2015. He had chosen a recording of his father's fiddle playing when he appeared on Desert Island Discs.

Death

Kennedy's death was announced in the early hours of 2 June 2015; he died at his home in Fort William at the age of 55.

***

Charles Peter Kennedy (25 November 1959 – 1 June 2015) was a British Liberal Democrat politician, who was the Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1999 to 2006 and was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 2015, most recently for the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency.

At the 1983 general election, at the age of 23, he stood for Ross, Cromarty and Skye, then held by the Conservative Hamish Gray. In a shock result, Kennedy was elected for the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He quickly emerged as a potential party leader, and in 1994, after the SDP and Liberal Party had formally merged, he became President of the Liberal Democrats, a position he held for the next four years. In 1999, after the resignation of Paddy Ashdown, Kennedy was elected leader. Under his party leadership's opposition to the Iraq War, all Liberal Democrats voted against or abstained on the vote for the invasion of Iraq, the largest British party to do so. A charismatic and affable speaker in public, Kennedy appeared extensively on television while leader. He led the party through two general elections, during which time they increased their seats in the House of Commons from 46 to 62, the best Liberal result in a century.

During the latter stages of his leadership, there was considerable speculation regarding his alcohol consumption. From December 2005, some within the party were openly questioning his position and calling for a leadership election. On 5 January 2006, Kennedy was informed that ITN would be reporting that he had received treatment for a drinking problem. Kennedy decided to pre-empt the broadcast and admit his condition openly. He called a leadership election at the same time, stating that he intended to stand. The admission of a drinking problem had seriously damaged his standing and 25 MPs signed a statement urging him to resign immediately. Kennedy resigned on 7 January and was replaced by Menzies Campbell.

After resigning as party leader, Kennedy remained in office as a backbench MP until losing his seat in 2015. In May 2010 he voted against Nick Clegg's decision to form a coalition with the Conservative Party after the 2010 general election. On constitutional reform, he was a long-term supporter of full home rule for Scotland within a federal United Kingdom within a federal Europe.

Kennedy was born in Inverness, the son of Mary and Ian Campbell. He was raised as a Roman Catholic, and was educated at Lochaber High School in Fort William.

Kennedy went on to study for a Master of Arts degree in Politics and Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. At university, he became politically active, joining the Social Democrats (SDP), as well as the Dialectic Society. In 1982, Kennedy won The Observer Mace debating competition, speaking with Clark McGinn.

Upon graduation in 1982, he went to work for BBC Scotland as a journalist. He later received a Fulbright Fellowship which allowed him to carry out research at Indiana University in the United States.

Member of Parliament

While studying in America, he received the Social Democratic Party (SDP) nomination for the Scottish seat of Ross, Cromarty and Skye, which he went on to win in 1983, becoming the youngest sitting Member of Parliament, aged 23. He retained the seat and its successor, Ross, Skye and Inverness West, at five subsequent general elections. He was, until 2015, the Liberal Democrat MP for the seat which replaced it in 2005, Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

In the late 1980s, the SDP and the Liberal Party, which had been co-operating in the SDP–Liberal Alliance, merged to form the Social and Liberal Democratic Party, later renamed the Liberal Democrats. Kennedy was the first of the five SDP MPs to support the merger; in his book Time To Declare, David Owen suggested this was due to pressure from Liberal activists in his constituency.

Kennedy served as a frontbencher for the Lib Dems in a variety of posts, including social security, agriculture and rural affairs, health, Scotland and Europe. He was also party president for four years, between 1990 and 1994.

Leader of Liberal Democrats

On 9 August 1999, Kennedy was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats after the retirement of Paddy Ashdown; he beat Jackie Ballard, Malcolm Bruce, Simon Hughes and David Rendel. He won 57% of the transferred vote under the Alternative Vote system (Hughes, the runner-up, won 43% of the vote).

Kennedy's style of leadership differed from Ashdown's, being regarded as more conversational and laid back. Although he was labelled "Chatshow Charlie" by some observers, as a result of his appearances on the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You, opinion polls showed him to be regarded positively as a party leader and potential Prime Minister by a significant fraction of the British electorate.

Kennedy maintained the long-standing aspiration for his party to break through to the status of official opposition. In his first major campaign, the 2001 general election, the Liberal Democrats improved their share of the vote to 18.3%, which was 1.5% more than in the 1997 election. Although this was a smaller share than the 25.4% the SDP/Liberal Alliance achieved in 1983, the Lib Dems won 52 seats compared to the Alliance's 23. In his last general election as leader, in May 2005, the Liberal Democrats won 62 seats, their greatest number of seats since the 1920s, gaining 22.1% of the vote.

Kennedy, along with his "election guru" Lord Rennard, targeted the Lib Dems' campaigning on a limited number of seats in such a way as to turn a lower level of national support into a greater number of Parliamentary seats. He extended this strategy at the 2005 General Election targeting the seats held by the most senior and/or highly regarded Conservative MPs, dubbed a "decapitation" strategy, with the expectation that without these "key" figures, the Conservatives would be discredited as the official Opposition allowing Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats to claim that they are the "effective Opposition".

However, this strategy is widely seen to have failed. At the 2005 General Election, the Liberal Democrats failed to unseat leading Conservatives such as the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Oliver Letwin, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, Shadow Secretary of State for the Family Theresa May and the Leader of the Opposition Michael Howard. The biggest "scalp" the Liberal Democrats managed to claim was that of the Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins in Westmorland and Lonsdale. This was one of only three seats the Liberal Democrats won from the Conservatives, the others being Solihull and Taunton. However, the Lib Dems lost more seats overall to the Conservatives, resulting in a net loss to the Conservatives. The net gain was instead made through winning significant numbers of seats from Labour.

At the same time, the Lib Dems also hoped to capture marginal Labour seats, attracting Labour voters (particularly Muslim voters) who were dissatisfied because of the invasion of Iraq, which Kennedy's party had opposed; the party had succeeded with this tactic in by-elections, taking Brent East and Leicester South from Labour. The party did succeed to some extent in this aim, winning particularly in student areas such as Bristol, Cardiff and Manchester, but did not see the breakthrough some expected in areas with large Asian populations, even losing Leicester South.

At the 2005 election, the party succeeded in regaining the seat of Ceredigion, its first gain from the Welsh party Plaid Cymru. Overall Kennedy's party achieved a total of 62 seats, their highest number since 1923 with 22% of the overall vote. He heralded the Liberal Democrats as the "national party of the future".

However, this was significantly less than most observers had expected the party to win; just before the election, it had been anticipated by the media and opinion polls that the Liberal Democrats could win up to 100 seats and place them close to the Tories in terms of seats as well as votes.

In the wake of the general election, Kennedy's leadership came under increased criticism from those who felt that the Liberal Democrats could have surged forward, the official opposition Conservative Party being relatively weak. Many pointed the finger of blame at Kennedy for failing to widen the party's appeal. Others, like the former Deputy Chairman of the Federal Liberal Democrat Party, Donnachad McCarthy, resigned, citing the party's shift to the right of the political spectrum under Kennedy in pursuit of Conservative votes.

In late 2005, speculation surrounding the leadership of the Liberal Democrats was widespread, with the journalist Andrew Neil claiming to speak "on good authority" that Kennedy would announce his resignation at the 2006 spring conference of the Liberal Democrats. Kennedy's spokeswoman denied the report and complained against the BBC, which had broadcast it. After the election of the more moderate David Cameron as Leader of the Conservative Party in December 2005, it was widely reported that senior members of the Liberal Democrats had told Kennedy that he must either "raise his game" or resign.

On 13 December 2005, the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, claimed that there were briefings against the leader, with members of his party unhappy at what they saw as 'lack of leadership' from Kennedy. A "Kennedy Must Go" petition was started by The Liberal magazine (a publication with no affiliation to the Liberal Democrats) and allegedly had been signed by over 3,300 party members including 386 local councillors and two MPs by the end of 2005. A round-robin letter signed by Liberal Democrat MPs rejecting his leadership received 23 signatures.

In 2004, The Times published an apology over a report it had made stating Kennedy had not taken part in that year's Budget debate due to excessive drinking.

On 6 January 2006, Kennedy was informed that ITN would be reporting that he had received treatment for alcoholism. He called a sudden news conference to make a personal statement confirming the story. He stated that over the past eighteen months he had been coming to terms with a drinking problem, but has sought ongoing professional help. He told reporters that recent questions among his colleagues about his suitability as leader were partly as a result of the drinking problem but stated that he had been dry for the past two months and would be calling a leadership contest to resolve the issues surrounding his authority once and for all.

It was later claimed that the source for ITN's story was his former press secretary turned ITV News correspondent, Daisy McAndrew.

Resignation and backbenches

At 3 p.m. on 7 January, Kennedy called a press conference at which he announced that while he was buoyed by the supportive messages he had received from grassroot members, he felt that he could not continue as leader because of the lack of confidence from the Parliamentary party. He said he would not be a candidate in the leadership election and was standing down as leader "with immediate effect", with Menzies Campbell to act as interim leader until a new leader was elected. He also confirmed in his resignation statement that he did not expect to remain on the Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team. He pledged his loyalty to a new leader as a backbencher, and wished to remain active in the party and in politics. His leadership had lasted slightly less than six years and five months.

Campbell went on to win the resulting leadership election, and Kennedy subsequently gave his successor full public support.

Following his resignation, Kennedy's first major political activity was to campaign in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, which the Liberal Democrats went on to win, taking the seat from Labour.

On 22 June 2006, Kennedy made his first appearance in the national media after stepping down as party leader when he appeared on the BBC's Question Time. One of the questions on the show was about his possible return as leader, which he declined to rule out.

On 4 August 2006, Kennedy hosted a documentary on Channel 4 about what he saw as the increasing disenchantment felt by voters towards the main parties in British politics due to their hesitation to discuss the big issues, especially at election time, and the ruthless targeting of swing-voters in key constituencies at the expense of the majority. He also contributed an article covering the same issues to The Guardian's Comment Is Free section.

On 29 August 2006, The Times began serialising a biography of Kennedy by the journalist Greg Hurst. The book claimed that senior Liberal Democrats, including the subsequent leader Menzies Campbell, had known about Kennedy's drinking problem when he was elected as leader in 1999 and had subsequently kept it hidden from the public.

After Campbell resigned as Liberal Democrat leader on 15 October 2007, Kennedy said that it was "highly unlikely" that he would try to return as party leader, but he did not rule it out completely.

Conservative-Lib Dem coalition

At the 2010 General Election, Kennedy was re-elected to parliament with a majority of 13,070.

Kennedy explained in an article for The Observer that he had voted against the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition "when it was presented to Liberal Democrat parliamentarians" and that he "did not subscribe to the view that remaining in opposition ourselves, while extending responsible 'confidence and supply' requirements to a minority Tory administration, was tantamount to a 'do nothing' response". Finally, Kennedy warned of the risks of "a subsequent assimilation within the Conservative fold", adding: "David Cameron has been here often before: from the early days of his leadership he was happy to describe himself as a 'liberal Conservative'. And we know he dislikes the term Tory. These ongoing efforts at appropriation are going to have to be watched".

The media reported on 21 August 2010 that Kennedy was about to defect from the Liberal Democrats to Labour in protest against his party's role in the coalition government's public spending cuts, but the Liberal Democrats were swift to deny these reports. Kennedy himself denied the rumours in an interview with The Mail on Sunday.

Kennedy played a role in the cross-party Better Together campaign, which was the pro-union campaign for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

Kennedy lost his seat in the 2015 General Election amid UK-wide seat losses for the Liberal Democrats and a surge in support for the Scottish National Party.

Rector of University of Glasgow

In February 2008, Kennedy was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow and was officially installed, succeeding Mordechai Vanunu, on 10 April 2008. He won the election with a 46% share of vote, supported by not only his own Glasgow University Union but also the Queen Margaret Union and Glasgow University Sports Association. He was re-elected in February 2011, defeating one other candidate, writer A. L. Kennedy, by a clear margin. He served six years as rector until Edward Snowden was elected in February 2014.

Personal life

In July 2002, Kennedy married Sarah Gurling, the sister of his friend James Gurling.

Reports of Kennedy's ill-health in 2003 at the time of crucial debates on the Iraq War and after the 2004 Budget (his ill health meant he missed an entire Budget speech) and linked rumours of alcoholism, were strenuously denied at the time by both Kennedy and his party.

In April 2005, the launch of his party's manifesto for the 2005 General Election was delayed due to the birth of his first child, with Sir Menzies Campbell taking temporary charge as acting leader and covering Kennedy's campaign duties. At the manifesto launch, on his first day back on the campaign trail after the birth, Kennedy struggled to remember the details of a key policy (replacing the council tax with a local income tax) at an early morning press conference, which he later blamed on a lack of sleep due to his new child.

In July 2007, Kennedy was informally spoken to by the British Transport Police after he breached the smoking ban in England on a train.

On 9 August 2010, it was announced that Kennedy and his wife were to separate. Their divorce was granted on 9 December 2010.

Kennedy's father Ian, to whom he was close, died in April 2015. He had been a brewery worker but a life-long teetotaller. Kennedy had chosen a recording of his father's fiddle playing when he appeared on Desert Island Discs.

Death

Kennedy's death was announced in the early hours of 2 June 2015; he had died the day before at his home in Fort William at the age of 55.

Bibliography

Works

• The Future of Politics (2000)