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Kennedy rejects Tory threat

Kennedy rejects Tory threat

The leadership debates in the Labour and Conservative parties are a chance for the Liberal Democrats to push for a stronger liberal agenda, Charles Kennedy said today.

And the Liberal Democrat leader denied that a Tory party led by former chancellor Kenneth Clarke could win back voters who defected to his party.

“We have heard this kind of talk about the Conservatives on several occasions,” Mr Kennedy told the Guardian.

“After the Brent East by-election [won by the Lib Dems], a lot of people said the big losers were the Liberal Democrats, because our success led to the change in the Conservative leadership.”

But he argues the Tories are still struggling to maintain a presence in much of the country, citing the fact that his party holds second place in more than 100 Labour seats.

Importantly, Mr Kennedy believes the current discussion within the Conservative party about who should be the next leader has opened the way for a more energetic debate on issues the Liberal Democrats want to see come to centre stage.

The debates have provided “a very, very good opportunity for us to be much more ebullient about the need and the case and cogency of the liberal argument in British politics”.

This meant, he said, focusing more on the primacy of the individual and “the role of the individual as opposed to the interests of the nation state”.

It seems a particularly important time to push these priorities forward amid increasing concern about the impact on the government’s anti-terror measures on individual rights.

Today Mr Kennedy said ministers were guilty of bowing to public pressure on how to respond to the London terror attacks in July, accusing them of “striking stances or floating initiatives in response to very short-term, primarily media demands”.

Responding to Tony Blair’s claims that a new political climate had been created by the terrorist attacks, he said: “When I hear phrases like that being used I really do get concerned.

“Climate by definition can change from one day to the next. You don’t change your entire fundamental approach based on something as passing as that. Politicians should not be governed by something as nebulous as the climate.”

While the Liberal Democrats have backed the Home Office’s outline of the grounds on which potential terrorist sympathisers can be excluded from Britain, Mr Kennedy left open the issue of whether he would support the government when the latest anti-terrorist legislation comes before parliament this autumn.