Wednesday 3rd June

I cannot let the occasion pass without my personal tribute to a very wonderful man, who just happened to be a brilliant Politician too.  He was a Highlander and became an M.P. for a Highland seat at a young age.  He was then a Social Democrat; this was a breakaway group of the centre left which split from Labour in the early Eighties.  Led by the arrogant David Owen they, like UKIP three decades on, soared in popularity as Labour was seen then (as now by some) to be too left wing.  In the nineties they merged with the old Liberal party and Charlie was a rising star.  He was completely unaffected, he said it as he saw it, and the public seemed to respond to his openness and honesty.  A regular on ‘Have I Got News For You’, where he enjoyed the self-deprecating humour, he still retained a serious side and was ruthless enough to seize the leadership of his party when Paddy Ashdown stood down.

He led the party to its greatest electoral success and in 2005 they won 62 seats.  But Charlie had his own devils and was smoking and drinking too much and he was persuaded to resign. Pretty soon Nick Clegg took over and in the blink of an eye joined the Tories in the Coalition.  Public perception is all important in Politics and Clegg gave the impression that he was a Tory all along; one wonders what, if Charlie had been able to stop smoking and drinking and had still been leader, would have happened.  I don’t think the lure of being Deputy P.M. would have appealed to him and he would have had a much more arms-length relationship with Cameron.  Who knows?  All I know is that the LibDems are ruined and a great man, maybe broken in spirit by the party’s and his own defeat at the hands of the SNP has left the stage.

I was always a lifelong Labour supporter, but even I was tempted to vote for Charlie on more than one occasion.  I think he may actually have been in the wrong party (just like Clegg), only Charlie would have made a great Labour leader.  As Enoch Powell said “Every Political Career ends in failure.”  Just wish it wasn’t so final.