Liberal Democrat Leadership: The Cases of Ashdown and Kennedy

Abstract

Effective leadership of the Liberal Democrats requires a combination of strengths: communications skills, a clear agenda, the ability to manage the party and personal abilities, including stamina, self‐confidence and a love for the party itself. This article assesses Paddy Ashdown's and Charles Kennedy's periods as leader. It concludes that the first two phases of Ashdown's leadership were successful: he first ensured the party's survival and then positioned it so that it was able to benefit from the rise in support for the centre‐left without being squeezed out by Labour. In the third phase, however, the attempt to deliver a common agenda with Labour was a failure, and Ashdown increasingly lost touch with his own party. Kennedy's first two years as leader were also relatively successful, but after that his leadership fell apart, suffering from a lack of an agenda, a failure of party management, a weakness in communication skills and a lack of self‐confidence. His underlying problem was not alcoholism; it was that he was not capable of being an effective leader.