OOC: Just what I've written so far. More to follow.
Transcript from interview by Mehdi Hasan with Charles Kennedy, Baron Kennedy of Ross. Guardian-ITN Video. November 2011.
Mehdi Hasan: Did you ever feel like you were empowering the Tories by competing with Labour?
Charles Kennedy: Well yes but it was a price we had to pay. At that point with First Past the Post still in place it was seen by many as a two party system, some would still argue that it is. We felt we had to offer an alternative to Labour as well as the Tories or we'd simply empower labour in turn.
MH: Did you see yourselves as a potential election winner in the approach to the 92 election?
CK: Some of us did. I was hopeful but I'd like to think I wasn't naive. Following the merger we continued to poll decently, close to and occasionally equal to Labour. However it remained uncertain whether this was due to our cohesion and message or their lack of appeal and message. The Merger definitely helped. With both David's having retired or committed electoral suicide we had a new front team led quite ably by David Penhaligon, "The New David" as he was dubbed in the commons and in turn supported by Alan Beith for the treasury and Paddy Ashdown at foreign affairs. A lot of people wanted Paddy as "Shadow-Shadow-Chancellor" as Roy Hattersley had dubbed Alan Beith just prior to the election but I was all for Paddy doing Foreign affairs. It was what he knew best and he consistently went toe to toe with both John Major and Gerald Kaufman.
MH: Did you focus on defeating Labour in the commons?
CK: Again, we didn't position ourselves as a replacement to Labour, that'd just lead to us becoming the new opposition party, not a potential winning party. We wanted to show an alternative and at that point in the early nineties, before the Brown and Blair years we were, and the polls supported this.
MH: Were you have any ambitions for yourself at that point?
CK: No, not at that point. I'd only just stopped being the baby of the house in '87 and I was happy helping the party.
MH: Moving onto 1990,
MH: Baron Kennedy, Thank you.
CK: Always a pleasure Mehdi.
Hasan then turns to face the camera.
MH: We'll be continuing our look back on the late eighties and early nineties in British politics after these messages. Coming up I'll be talking to Eddie Izzard MP, Ian Hislop and Sir Chris Patten.