Charles Kennedy: a personal tragedy

Tell me I'm going soft in my old age, but on a personal level, I'm feeling sympathy towards Charles Kennedy who was forced to quit as Leader of the LibDems over his battle with alcohol.

I deplore his politics which I believe have more to do with opportunism than principle, and have no truck with his loyalists trying to spin a story of how brave he was to confront his problem. He wasn't. It was forced on him and he let down his Party.

But it's a personal tragedy all the same and I hope he's able to recover from his alcoholism.

Just when he's starting to pick himself up after the New Year revelations about his drinking led to his resignation, a book comes out trawling over every detail of his life - and his drinking.

Actually, the book by Times political journalist Greg Hurst won't be published until next month - to coincide with the LibDems annual Conference, where Mr Kennedy is said to be planning something of a come-back onto the political stage.

But damaging extracts of the book in The Times today may well dampen those plans.

Of course the public have a right to know that the man the LibDems hailed as "The Real Alternative" at the 2005 General Election was not fit for high office due to a serious illness called alcholism.

On the other hand, being Leader of the LibDems is not exactly the highest office in the land...

And there was never any real danger of Champagne Charlie actually getting his hands on the keys to 10 Downing Street. So the risk to national security was minimal.

From what I've seen of Greg Hurst's biography, it seems worthy but hardly sensational (though there may be more to come of course).

The media - and maybe some rival politicians - will no doubt seize on Hurst's revelation that the LibDem heirarchy confronted Kennedy in 2003 about his drinking when he admitted to them that he was an alcoholic.

There will be questions over the judgement of those at the top of the LibDem Party, specifically why was he allowed to continue leading the party into the 2005 General Election.

At one stage, he'd apparently decided to "come out" about his problem at a press conference, publicly admit he was having treatment, but try to carry on as Leader. But at the last minute he backed out and refused to go through with the planned press conference, insisting instead that he'd deal with the problem his own way.

He even went on Newsnight and denied his alcoholism.

That is maybe understandable - denial is no doubt part of the illness. But he was happy to repeatedly and wrongly accuse the Prime Minister of deliberately misleading the House of Commons over Iraq.

Senior LibDems must have known this was double standards at the time.

I was fascinated to learn from Hurst's book that Kennedy's tipple was not whisky from his native Highlands, or even champagne as previously rumoured, but gin and tonic or wine.