Blackford: I never had any issues with Kennedy
SNP’S Westminster leader Blackford ‘proud’ of his 2015 campaign
The SNP leader who ousted long- standing Highland MP Charles Kennedy a month before his death says he has no regrets over the ill-tempered campaign.
Ian Blackford claimed he was the victim of a “personal attack” from the Liberal Democrats as he battled to defeat their former leader in the 2015 General Election.
Mr Kennedy died at 55 less than a month after losing the seat he had held for 32 years, following a campaign in which some activists raised his long battle with drink.
Asked if he had any regrets about the way the campaign was run, Mr Blackford said: “No, I didn’t, because there was absolutely no issue between Charles and myself.
“Even on the night of the election, when he came in the first thing I did was shake his hand and he was extremely gracious and we had a good laugh.”
Mr Blackford, now leader of the SNP in Westminster, admitted he “did not enjoy” the general election campaign for the Ross, Skye and Lochaber seat.
The campaign was dogged by ill feeling, and SNP supporters faced accusations of using Mr Kennedy’s well-documented battle with alcoholism to undermine him.
Mr Blackford, who worked in finance for 30 years, was also said to have stormed into the Liberal Democrat campaign office for a showdown after he objected to being portrayed as a “well- funded banker from Edinburgh”.
But he said: “That wasn’t the case. I’d been in on several occasions. We even took some cake into them when we opened up our offices.
“I’d actually gone in to him because we’d had a public meeting the night before, and I’d gone to see Charles to say, ‘ look, could you lay off this personal attack on us’.
“With the benefit of hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, perhaps it would have been better not to do that. But that’s what happened, and the Liberals have sought to characterise it in another way.”
He added: “I’m not in any way blaming Charles, who was the MP.”
He said: “I can look at our own campaign in 2015 and I think I can be proud of the way we conducted the campaign.”
Mr Blackford did not attend Mr Kennedy’s funeral after his death at home in Fort William from a haemorrhage linked to his alcoholism.
However, he paid tribute to him and said: “I personally had an awful lot of respect for Charles.”