Biography

The Rt Hon Charles Kennedy is MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

Born in Inverness in 1959, he was brought up and educated in Fort William, and attended Glasgow University. Following his graduation in 1982, he worked as a journalist and broadcaster with BBC Highland in Inverness.

He was then awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to attend Indiana University in the United States. In 1983 he was working towards a PhD at Indiana when the opportunity arose to seek the SDP nomination for Ross, Cromarty and Skye. He made a flying visit home, won the ballot and returned full time to the UK in April. The general election followed and less than six weeks later he was elected to the House of Commons, defeating the sitting government minister to become the youngest MP of the time.

During his term in parliament he has acted as a spokesperson on issues ranging from the welfare state to Europe, agriculture and rural affairs. He has served on the All-Party Select Committee that introduced the televising of the chamber. He was the first SDP MP to back the merger with the Liberals after the 1987 general election, and moved a successful motion to this effect at the party conference that year.

Charles Kennedy was elected UK Party President, the equivalent of party chairman, in 1990, and served in that post until 1994. In August 1999 he was elected as the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, and he was appointed to the Privy Council in October 1999.

In his six years as Leader he took the Liberal Democrats from strength to strength in local and national politics, making some fundamental and hugely difficult political decisions. He ended the relationship with Labour after suspecting it was turning into a trap rather than an opportunity - largely because Tony Blair failed to deliver on offering the people a referendum over the electoral system.

And later, in by far the most controversial decision of his leadership, he led the Party in outright opposition to the war on Iraq, something that saw the Lib Dems taking large numbers of votes from both Labour and the Tories.

At party conferences over the past couple of years, the Lib Dems were far more likely to be accused of "getting serious" rather than anything else.

He also took the Liberal Democrats to their most successful election performance for some 80 years when they returned 63 MPs in May 2005.

He stood down as Leader of the Party in January 2006.