The Right Honourable Charles Peter Kennedy (born 25 November 1959) is a British politician, who has been leader of the Liberal Democrats (the third largest political party in the United Kingdom) since 1999.

Early life

Innate inside Inverness, Scotland and raised Roman Catholic, Charles Kennedy was educated at Lochaber High School & went on to survey for a Masters Degree inside Politics and Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. It was at university that he became politically active, he was the member of the Dialectical Society (the debating club) however he was non the member of the Labour Club. He was elective president of Glasgow University Union and won the British Observer Mace university debating award. GUU wwhen a survive 100%-male student union in a globe; in the period of his period when president Kennedy opposed admitting women as members, however conceded kill under pressure from either the University Court. Shortly fallowing he joined a Social Democrats (SDP).

Upon graduation around 1982 he went to work for BBC Highland as the journalist, and late received a Fulbright Fellowship allowing him to carry out research at Indiana University in the United States, on the rhetoric of Roy Jenkins.

Political career
When researching around United states he likewise received a SDP nomination for the Scottish seat of Ross, Cromarty and Skye, which he went on to winside in 1983, becoming a immature seated Member of Parliament. He has retained a seat & its successor, Ross, Skye & Inverness West, at 5 subsequent general elections; he is the Liberal Democrats' MP for the seat which replaced it within 2005: Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

In a late 1980s a SDP & the Liberal Party, which had been co-operating in the SDP-Liberal Alliance, merged to form a Mixer & Liberal Democratic Person, late renamed the Liberal Democrats. Kennedy was one of lone 5 SDP MPs to trend lines a merge.

Kennedy served as the frontbencher for the Lib Dems around a kind of posts, including social security, agriculture and rural affairs, health, Scotland and Europe. He was as well person president for quaternary years, between 1990 and 1994.

Leadership

In August 9, 1999, Charles Kennedy was elected leader of a Liberal Democrats when the retirement of Paddy Ashdown; he beat Jackie Ballard, Malcolm Bruce, Simon Hughes and David Rendel. He won 57% of the vote in the final spherical across the proportional representation system (Simon Hughes, the runner-second best, won 43% of the vote).

Kennedy's style of leadership is somewhat different from either Ashdown's, existence repute further colloquial & "laid back". Although he hwhen been dismissed as "Chatshow Charlie" by a few observers, following of his appearances on the satirical panel game Have I Got News For You, opinion polls have shown him to become positively look upon a person leader & expected Prime Minister by a important fraction of the British electorate.

Kennedy maintains a hanker standing aspiration for his person to break across to the status of official opposition. Around his number 1 major campaign, a 2001 general election, the Liberal Democrats improved their share of the vote to Xviii.3%, Unity.5% additional than in the 1997 election. Although this occurs as little part than a Twenty-five.4% a SDP/Liberal Alliance achieved in 1983, a Lib Dems won 52 seats compared to the Alliance's Twenty-three. In the 2005 election his party achieved the aggregate of 62 seats, by having Xxii.0% of a overall vote (excluding the posponed vote around South Staffordshire).

Kennedy, along by using his "election guru" Lord Rennard, has targeted the Lib Dems' political campaign inside the limited total of seats in such how else when to turn the lower level of national trend lines into the greater total of Parliamentary seats. He extended this strategy at the 2005 General Election targeting a seats held per virtually all senior and/or extremely regarded Conservative MPs, dubbed a "decapitation" strategy, sustaining a expectation that while forgoing these "key" numbers, a Conservativist would exist when discredited as a Official Opposition leaving Charles Kennedy & a Liberal Democrats to claim that it is a "effective Opposition".

Notwithstanding, this strategy is widely seen to use at times failed. At a 2005 General Election, a Liberal Democrats failed to unseat leading Conservativist like a Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Oliver Letwin, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, Shadow Secretary of State for the Family Theresa May and the Leader of the Opposition Michael Howard. A large "scalp" a Liberal Democrats managed to claim was that of the Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins in Westmorland and Lonsdale.

At a equivalent instance, a Lib Dems too hoped to capture marginal Labour seats, attracting Labour elector (particularly Muslim voters) who were dissatisfied because of the invasion of Iraq; the person succeded by using this manoeuvre around by-elections, taking Brent East and Leicester South from Labour.

Since a General Election, Kennedy's leadership has are under increased critisism from either people world health organization felt that in case the Liberal Democrats may not capitalise & turn into a Official Opposition at once once, arguably, a Official Opposition, a Conservative Person, were at a comparatively feeble position. Numbers of use pointed a finger of blame at Kennedy for failing to widen a Person's appeal when others, prefer a previous Deputy Chairman of a Federal Liberal Democrat Person, Donnachadh McCarthy, develop resigned from either a Person citing the person's shift to the perfect of the political spectrum under Kennedy within pursuit of Conservative votes.

Sir Ludovic Kennedy, husband of Lady Moira Shearer Kennedy, condemned Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, for opposing mercy killing inside 2001. He so resigned from either a person to substitute the general election as an independent, on the platform of legalising voluntary mercy killing, however has since rejoined.

Personal life
Around July 2002, Charles Kennedy married Sarah Gurling, a sister of his right friend, James Gurling. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2141472.stm]

Reports of Kennedy's ill-health inside 2003 at a instance of important debates in Iraq & dollars and cents were linked to uncorroborated allegations of alcoholism.

Sarah gave birth to their number one little one, Donald James Kennedy, at 12:14am April 12 2005, at St Thomas' Hospital, London. Kennedy got been due to launch his person's manifesto for the General Election, which was subsequently delayed, sustaining Sir Menzies Campbell taking temporary charge when acting leader & covering Kennedy's campaign duties. In a period of a pronunciamento launch in his foremost day back on a campaign trail fallowing the birth, Kennedy struggled to remember the details of a key policy (replacing the Council Tax with a Local Income Tax) at an early morning press conference, which he late blamed in the deficiency of sleep due to his newly infant.