A crowded House of Commons remembers Charles Kennedy

Donald Kennedy, just 10 years old, his lips pursed, his eyes wet with tears, but in control, sat in the public gallery in the House of Commons, the image of his late father, Charles, who had died little more than 24 hours earlier.

The house was crowded for the first prime minister’s questions of the new parliament. Victorious Conservatives filled the aisles, but the aisles would have filled on any day, if only for a time, to mourn the passing of the Scottish politician.

"He was the most human of politicians," said prime minister David Cameron, before continuing, "At his best he was the best that politics can be, and that is how we should remember him."

Sitting above, Donald smiled, sitting close to his mother, Sarah, who married Charles in 2001, gave birth to Donald during the 2005 general election and divorced in 2010.

During the hour and more to follow, there were many moments when politicians held back tears, or voices were caught with emotion, as happened for Nick Clegg, who remembered good and bad days.

Looking back to Kennedy’s opposition in 2003 to the Iraq War, Clegg said his position “might seem now an obvious thing”, but it was not then: “Charles was often a lone voice in this House, standing up against a consensus on all sides in favour of war.”

Clegg remembered smoking cigarettes in the rain with Kennedy during one chapter of the Liberal Democrats’ innumerable difficulties during its five years in coalition with the Conservatives – a coalition Kennedy had opposed.

“There was never a hint of reproach or ‘I told you so’ in the advice he gave to me,” Clegg said. “He remained unstintingly loyal, no matter what the circumstances and no matter how strong the temptation must have been to blow his own trumpet.”

Fellow Liberal Democrat Tim Farron said Kennedy then had been “surrounded by people baying at him as if he was somehow Chamberlain, as if he was somehow an appeaser of Saddam Hussein.

Principled

“The Sun had a front page picture of

Charles Kennedy

the antipatriotic rattlesnake. By golly, you must be doing something right when that happens. Charles Kennedy was principled and he changed people’s minds, and he was right.”

Looking up to the public gallery, Farron added: “Charles Kennedy was a very, very special man. Donald, you should be really proud of your Daddy. I am proud of your Daddy. I loved him to bits. I am proud to call him my friend. God rest ye, Charlie.”

Earlier, Cameron had been loudly hailed by Conservatives when he was called on by the speaker of the commons, John Bercow, to take the first questions in the weekly cauldron, one hated by most occupants of No 10 over the years.

The election campaign is over, but the language remains much the same, with Cameron again talking about the Conservatives’ long-term economic plan, cutting taxes, jobs – convinced economic issues delivered last month’s victory.

Sacked cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell asked Cameron "to make it clear" that he has no plans to pull the United Kingdom out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Cameron does not want to be boxed in by anyone, saying he had made it clear during the election that he did not want to quit the European Convention on Human Rights but warning he would rule out “absolutely nothing” to ensure British judges make the legal decisions that count.

Modesty

In his tribute, Nick Clegg remembered past days with Charles Kennedy, but he thought about the future, too: “There is so much that I will miss about Charles – his wit, his warmth, his modesty.

“But I suspect many of us will feel his absence most keenly when our country decides in the next year or two whether we belong, or not, in the European Union.” On that battle, he said: “I will miss the lyrical clarity of Charles’s belief.”