Kennedy's interview with the Guardian

7.00.00pm GMT Sat 20th Nov 2004

Charles Kennedy was interviewed for today's Guardian, below is a copy of the story:

Kennedy is ready to push the Tories aside - The Liberal Democrats offer the only true alternative to an illiberal government, their leader argues.

British voters face a choice between two hardened governing parties "locked together in their illiberalism" and a Liberal Democrat opposition committed to a truly liberal agenda, Charles Kennedy declares today.

A week of policy chaos on the Labour and Conservative benches - culminating in David Blunkett's resignation drama - shows that Tony Blair's government is now "imploding" and Michael Howard has finally "unravelled", he argues.

In an end-of-term interview with the Guardian the Lib Dem leader dismisses the Tory U-turn to vote in favour of ID cards and urges Charles Clarke, the new home secretary, to "pause for reflection" before pressing ahead either with ID cards or renewal of the anti-terrorism legislation condemned by the law lords on Thursday.

The politician who used to pride himself on appealing to the "anti-politics" mood of the country now admits that there is a risk in the current state of voter apathy. "If you don't vote you can now see what happens," Mr Kennedy warns. "We now have two parties, each accustomed to being in power, locked together on their illiberal agenda, against us, the one party which is clearly still pursuing a liberal agenda."

Just as Michael Howard's latest wobble gives the Lib Dems a major opportunity "to compete with them for the libertarian agenda" and to snatch second place after Labour at the coming general election, so Mr Blunkett's resignation and Tuesday's ministerial confusion over the mental capacity bill (when an important letter went missing) also highlights Labour's decay.

"I think it's now accepted that Michael Howard has quite simply unravelled, that's been clear for a while. But the government seems to be imploding. Blair's judgment was called into question over Iraq, but now domestic strains are showing," Mr Kennedy warns.

"The way he handled the Blunkett case again shows that his judgment must now be questioned. Even the business of parliament itself is a shambles. With a three-figure majority, how can they create a shambles like the mental capacity bill?"

The scenario raises Lib Dems hopes that they can "leapfrog from third place to first place" in Labour-held seats as well as Tory ones on polling day.

"In 1997 Labour jumped from third place to first in many places, overtaking us in the process. We'll see quite a lot of votes churning this time too. And the fact that Labour is peddling the line 'Vote Lib Dem and you'll elect a Conservative' quite so hard makes me suspicious. It's not true."

So confident are the Lib Dems that, with just 55 MPs, they are packing as much punch as their bigger rivals at Westminster that Mr Kennedy has written to the cabinet secretary, Sir Andrew Turnbull, requesting equal access to Whitehall's senior departmental officials for advice on policy in the run-up to the election.

The Douglas-Home convention, dating from the 1960s, allows the main opposition party to have formal consultations with permanent secretaries who will by now have started examining their early pledges in case of an election upset. But the Lib Dems, who now call their own team a "shadow cabinet", have only ever had brief and informal talks.

"I have now made a formal request for equal treatment with the Conservatives," says Mr Kennedy, who boasts that his top lieutenants - Menzies Campbell, Mark Oaten and Vince Cable - "outclass what the Conservatives have to offer and are more than a match for the government".

As the big beasts of the Blair cabinet, Jack Straw, Charles Clarke and Gordon Brown would happily accept that challenge. But recent events have emboldened 45-year-old Mr Kennedy in his sixth year as party leader, not least the former home secretary's criticism of his colleagues.

"David Blunkett's remarks may not have any direct effect. But I'm beginning to feel it adds up to a sense that the cabinet are not just divided within themselves on policy, they are riven with personal differences so that they can't get on with the big picture. They are looking like very damaged goods."

For Mr Kennedy 2005 is the year of delivery in more ways than the election result. His wife, Sarah, is expecting their first child in April. "That puts the election in some sort of perspective," he says with evident pleasure, despite being constantly teased about nappies and late nights.

The Kennedys will spend Christmas at the family's converted croft outside Fort William, which boundary changes have now placed inside his sprawling Highland constituency, diluting his 12,952 majority with Labour votes. "There's a lot of work to do, but I am a local boy."

Mr Kennedy's political optimism contrasts with what he dismisses as the media pundits' conventional wisdom a year ago. "I went home at Christmas to read and listen to the end-of-term reports that the Conservatives are resurgent, rejuvenated, reinvigorated. Many people wrote us off as a result. For the intervening three or four months it was very difficult for us to get into the political debate."

Then Mr Howard pre-judged Lord Hutton's report on the death of David Kelly and wriggled in his support for the Iraq war. He also backed, then withdrew from, the Butler committee, leaving the Tory MP Michael Mates as "some sort of country club member" on the panel.

The "new spring in Tory MPs' step" has long disappeared, leaving Mr Howard spewing out hundreds of policy state ments, many in response to events and pressure from the Tory press. "It may appeal to the core vote, but that does not make it easier to appeal to the wider vote on the terrain where elections are won or lost," Mr Kennedy observes dryly.

Combined with what he calls Mr Blair's dwindling credibility at home and abroad, it helped the Lib Dems capture the Labour stronghold of Newcastle in the May elections. Mr Kennedy slides over the party's fourth place - behind Ukip - in the Euro-elections in June and stresses its byelection win in Leicester South and near misses in Hodge Hill and Hartlepool.

"Tony Blair's still there, I never thought that wouldn't be the case. But the most telling thing I can say is that I've seen hundreds of individual Labour election leaflets from one end of the country to the other this year and I could count on the fingers of one hand those with a single photo of the Labour leader."