As MPs lauded his dad, Charles’ little boy smiled with shy pride
CHARLES Kennedy’s ex- wife Sarah and their son Donald sat in an upstairs gallery to hear the Commons memorialise the late Lib Dem leader. The boy, ten years old and spit of the sire, smiled with shy pride when he heard his name uttered by David Cameron. Donald, all chorister cheeks and handsome ginger hair parted neatly, leaned into his mother and she on him, clutching him as she heard MPs pay lengthy tribute. Both kept their composure. Quite how, I am not sure, for some – though not all – of the speeches were gracious and sentimental. Many were even reasonably truthful. Donald seemed to be excited to visit this important place, eyes sparkling at the spectacle of a Chamber still packed from Prime Minister’s Questions. PMQs had been raucous, the Tories on noisy song. Now the mood had switched in an instant to grief. How does this work in the normally boisterous Commons? Were many of those who spoke yesterday not fierce opponents and past critics of Charles Kennedy? Well, yes. But that is the way of Westminster, odd though non-parliamentarians may find it. The Cameron who spoke fondly about the days he and Charlie would chat over cigarettes in the old Smoking Room (since renamed) was the same Cameron who in public is withering about the more leftwing Lib Dems. Nick Clegg voiced an eloquent salute to Mr Kennedy’s ‘steely courage’ while also noting that he was ‘not exactly a details man’. Charlie had regarded intense policy work ‘like Ben Nevis – something to be admired from afar but a trial to be endured by others’. It is no secret that Mr Clegg sometimes found Mr Kennedy exasperating. Mr Clegg praised his predecessor’s European views and said he would ‘miss his lyrical clarity’ in the coming months leading to the EU referendum. He also recalled how bad Charles had been at answering his telephone. Sarah smiled ruefully at this, the moment lightening a face that had been in danger of crumpling. Eulogising is part of the senior politician’s repertoire. In any one year a party leader will speak at more funerals and memorial services than most of us may do in a lifetime. Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg hit the right tone, affectionate yet not ladling it on too thickly. Speaker Bercow, who had insisted on being first to speak, did not manage this judicious balance. Mr Bercow lacks the thespian subtlety to slip into a sincerely retrospective tone. He can neither deploy a consoling echo of the pulpit, as a couple of Ulstermen did, nor overcome his mannered speech patterns to appear spontaneous. I do not mean to attack him. It is just the way it is. Mr Cameron and others noted that when Mr Kennedy had opposed the Iraq war in 2003, parts of the Commons had been nastily hostile. Indeed, Hansard’s account of that day shows us that those who tried to skewer Charles Kennedy included Cheryl Gillan ( Con, Chesham & Amersham), Michael Fabricant (Con, Lichfield) – who called his performance ‘ a disgrace’ – and Crispin Blunt (Con, Reigate). I was watching Mr Fabricant for a while yesterday. He kept low and quiet this time. Angus Robertson, for the Scots Nats, remembered how Mr Kennedy had ‘forensically questioned’ Tony Blair about Iraq in 2003. A yard from Mr Robertson stood Iain Duncan Smith, who had led the Tories at that time. IDS bit on his lip. Kenneth Clarke (Con, Rushcliffe) spoke of Charlie’s ‘school- boy’ looks and expressed regret that he was one of the last to believe hard political decisions were best made ‘in the atmosphere of a smoke-filled room’. Mr Clarke himself smokes cigars that emit fumes like a 19th century chimney. James Gray ( Con, N Wilts) gave a model of a speech, concise, self- teasing, humorous, understated. Mr Cameron turned to give Mr Gray a nod of congratulation. Others perhaps told us more about themselves, their own shortcomings and grievances, than about the man who had died. Sir Gerald Kaufman, Father of the House and by wide repute as acid as John Haigh’s bath- water, maundered on about how Mr Kennedy ‘was never vindictive, never malevolent, always genial’. Just like you, Gerry! Liam Fox (Con, N Somerset) praised the ‘authenticity’ of Mr Kennedy in ‘an era when the public think politicians are moulded to be as colourless as possible’. Who can frustrated Liam have had in mind? Gisela Stuart (Lab, Edgbaston), Tom Watson (Lab, West Brom E) and would-be Lib Dem leader Tim Farron took us to – and beyond – the frontier of schmaltz. Diane Abbott (Lab, Hackney N) reminded us that Mr Kennedy had joined her on antiwar marches. It’s always about Diane, you will find. But most MPs are not much different from rugby players or boxers. After trying to knock bells out of each other, they will afterwards clasp arms and concede affection. This is an emotional place. We should no more criticise that than we should fully believe them when they accuse one another of being ruinous wretches. It is merely part of the way mortality makes fools of us all.
‘Never vindictive, never malevolent, always genial’ ‘Cameron would chat with him over cigarettes’