Fighting talk from a dove

Peter Oborne talks to Charles Kennedy about his plans to put the Lib Dems ahead of the Tories

NO politician has the opportunity that Charles Kennedy has today: he just might reconfigure the political landscape. With the Conservative party in a weak and semi-moribund state, uncertain of its own identity and still struggling to come to terms with the landslide defeat of 1997, it is by no means inconceivable that the Lib Dems could emerge as the main opposition party in Britain. Charles Kennedy could go down in history as the man who reversed the calamity which overtook the Liberal party after the first world war, when the party split and in due course subsided into a tiny rump. Kennedy has the extraordinary historical chance to establish himself as leader of one of the two main political parties in Britain. The Tories, of course, would be the victims. Given will, drive and political intelligence, Kennedy could do to the Tories what Ramsay MacDonald and Labour did to the Liberals 80 years ago: relegate them to the second division.