Given the choice between a drunken Charles Kennedy and a sober Sir Menzies Campbell — to adapt the Times’s famous comparison of George Brown and Harold Wilson — we now know that the Liberal Democrat high command chose the former. There were four frontbenchers gathered in a room in March 2004 when they received first-hand confirmation that they were indeed being led by an alcoholic. This explained his mysterious absences, his slurred words in morning meetings and general level of inactivity. So the quartet, including Sir Menzies, took a unanimous decision: to do nothing.
It mattered little. Leadership is not so important to today’s Lib Dems, who have become more of a shapeless organism than a structured political party, thriving in places where one would not expect. They do not need central direction. Since Mr Kennedy resigned (his party was too shambolic even to organise a decent coup) it has scored by-election successes that elude the Cameron Conservatives.
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