Lord Steel: Kennedy was 'most successful' of all our party leaders

Former Liberal Democrat leader David Steel, now Lord Steel of Aikwood, says he regrets  not following the example of the late Charles Kennedy and voting against their party entering the coalition with the Conservatives after the 2010 General Election.

 

Lord Steel made the remarks while delivering the fifth annual Charles Kennedy Lecture to a standing-room only audience at the Ben Nevis Hotel, during the Lochaber Chamber of Commerce Ideas Week last Wednesday evening.

 

Past speakers have included Alastair Campbell, Baron Jim Wallace, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Lord John Thurso.

 

Lord Steel's remarks focused on tackling the need to reform the House of Lords, on raising the quality of discourse and debate in the Commons and he laid out his case for a written constitution.

 

But for the first part of the lecture, he spoke about his friendship with  the late local MP Mr Kennedy,a former Lib Dem leader like himself, who had been both a valued parliamentary colleague and a dear friend.

 

'To visit him on the family croft was a great experience, but we went back a long way,' said Lord Steel.

 

He recounted how he had first met the young Kennedy when he [Steel] was a guest judge at an inter-university debating competition at Bristol University.

 

'We had not only to choose the winning team but the best individual speaker – and we chose Charles Kennedy, who was then a member of the student Labour Party,' explained Lord Steel.

 

'At the dinner afterwards, I was sitting next to him and recall saying that having listened to his speech he ought to rethink his political allegiance. The rest is history.

 

'But what a history. He was pilloried, but right to oppose the war in Iraq. He was the first SDP MP to back merger with the Liberals.

 

'I had supper with him in the Commons cafeteria on the eve of the 2015 election when I confessed I had quietly abstained on the issue of the Con-Lib coalition and wished in retrospect that, like him, I had opposed it.

 

'The catalogue of subsequent coalition errors justified his stance – the about turn on the student fees pledge lost us trust, followed by the wasteful AV referendum, the failed attempts to improve the NHS bill, the abandoned House of Lords reform and the general adoption of the austerity programme which all led to the catastrophic debacle of the 2015 election when the Lib Dems plunged from 57 to eight seats.

 

'Looking at post-war politics I, of course, relish as leader the record 25 per cent vote obtained for a third party in the 1983 General Election, but it meant little influence in seats in the Commons, whereas Charles winning 63 seats marks him out as without question the most successful of all our party

 

leaders.'

 

"attachment_228589" "" "222"] Lord Steel hailed the late Charles Kennedy, pictured, as 'the most successful' of his party's leaders.
NO-F48-Kennedy

 

Lord Steel then turned to the state of British politics today and said he wanted to begin by referring to what he called the 'reduction in standards'

 

in both our parliaments.

 

'I refer in particular to Prime Minister’s Question Time. It is no longer Prime Minister’s Question Time – it has become Prime Minister’s Insult Time with the two protagonists exchanging well-rehearsed soundbites.'

 

Lord Steel said the 'rot set in' when the chamber became televised and

 

Prime Minister’s Questions became the subject of weekly electoral entertainment rather than genuine scrutiny of government.

 

And he said it was sadly the case that the same adverse trend in the Commons chamber has also set in at the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood - of which he was the first presiding officer - with 'belligerence and stridency' being the order of the day.

 

Lord Steel also attacked the increasing role of spin doctors, saying the trend was to be deplored. But his main theme of the evening was the need for a written constitution which would set out the major institutions of the British state, establish principles of governance and enumerate fundamental rights.

 

He went on to say that reform of the House of Lords to a second chamber should comprise 500 ‘democratically chosen’ representatives.

 

Following his lecture, Lord Steel relaxed in a leather armchair as host Ian Peter MacDonald and an engaged audience asked him a wide ranging series of questions.

 

When asked about the current climate of hostility in the Westminster parliament, he was optimistic that the new Speaker of the House would take the initiative and rein in the current 'vituperativeness'.

 

As the evening concluded, Lord Steel shared one final thought with the audience: 'You have to listen to people’s views, even if you don’t agree with them.'