Talk:Charles Kennedy

message: Some Liberal Democrat appears to be consistently editing this page to ensure it contains no links to anybody who has anything critical to say about Kennedy. What are they afraid of?
Anybody knows if he has any relationship with Ted Kennedy or not?!
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Have I got for news for you - Is this the correct title? -- Zoe
Yup. Not sure on the capitalization, so I figured best go all lowercase as per Wikipedia policy. IIRC on the opening sequence it's all in caps. It's a very popular programme in the UK. I would recommend it but I doubt non-brits would get much of the jokes -- Tarquin
: there's no question mark: see http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/profiles/angus_deayton.shtml
::But "FOR news FOR you"? -- Zoe
::: You're right, the first FOR is incorrect, I've fixed the page. --Imran
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How would people feel about moving this to Charles Kennedy, which is currently vacant?
I've been twenty pages deep on a Google search for "charles kennedy" and the vast majority of pages are about this man. Two other Charles Kennedys who might be of interest to Wikipedia eventually are:
*Pte Charles Thomas Kennedy VC (1876-1907), British soldier, Boer War hero.
*Charles Kennedy (1923-1997), British economist.
Does anybody know of any more? --rbrwr
PS: for the moment, I've made Charles Kennedy a redirect here --rbrwr
: I've added a small disambig page, just for completeness. I suspect a couple more will turn up, in the fullness of time. Shimgray 21:22, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I feel I should comment on some unsourced material, now removed but not by me, about Kennedy's comments on the mixing of Glasgow University Union.  If all Kennedy is saying is that he did not have the power to take major decisions single-handed then he is right, but as president of the board around that time he must have had some serious influence.  It could be interesting if he gave a detailed account of goings-on on the GUU board around that time, but will he do so? PatGallacher 16:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: GUU

message: "one of only five MPs to support the merge[r]".  If memory serves there were only 8, of whom three (David Owen, John Cartwright and Rosie Barnes) opposed the merger and, briefly, formed a breakaway SDP that, funded by Sainsbury, continued for a short time.  Open to correction.
195.72.169.116 14:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: SDP

message: I've changed description of leadership election: it is not a proportional representation system for the rather obvious reason that an election with a single winner cannot be held under proportional representation (it's actually Alternative Vote). Flagboy 23:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Leadership

message: This source says that he didn't:
I'm going to re-edit the story.  --JASpencer 18:22, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Did Paxman apologise?

message: *That's what this article states. But I am fairly sure there was a leadership crisis already. He decided to announce he had had alcohol treatment to stop it from being leaked to the press first. He felt this might happen because of the leadership trouble and that it would be very politically damaging if it did. rst20xx 20:29, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah I'm right. Proof:. Gonna do a rewrite. rst20xx 12:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text: We need a reliable source before we can add something like that on a biography of a living person. SamWilson989 (talk) 07:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alcohol treatment announcement cause of leadership crisis? 

message: "GUU was the last all-male student union in the world"
Very funny. Cross-country comparisons are hard to do, but this is a social thing right? Some sort of big students' club... at my university (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) the oldest and most respected students' club is still all-male, as hard as it may seem to believe. So I'll make it 'last all-male student union in the UK'... Renke 23:29, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GUU 

message: This page is far too much led by recent events and churlish political interjections presumably added by supporters of other parties when it should be a fair evaluation of Kennedy's longer career in which his downfall receives coverage but does not completely dominate the article. Once things calm down it needs a considered and neutral rewrite from top to bottom.--Alberdi 03:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately that's faute de mieux for Wikipedia - it tends to be recent events that bring people to pages, and naturally while all the details are fresh in the mind, they tend to get added to the page. Whereas it's much less likely that someone will dig out the details of what Charles Kennedy did during the debate over the merger of the SDP and the Liberals, details which are not well covered in online sources, nor about his long career in Parliament before becoming Lib Dem leader. Hence the article looks unbalanced. Of course members of other parties are welcome to contribute, so long as they do so in a NPOV way (ahem). David | Talk 15:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: An IP address has been going round numerous articles putting them in :Category:People of Irish descent in Great Britain and/or :Category:Irish-Scots, often with zero mention of this in the article itself.
There is no such information about CK in this article, and as far as I am aware he is of the Scottish Kennedys, not the Irish ones. --Mais oui! 08:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I dug out this from 2002: "He describes himself nowadays as 'a Christian of Catholic disposition' but doesn't go to Mass" (). I think this excludes him from the Catholic categories, which as I undrestand it is meant for practising Catholics. --Guinnog 11:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:People of Irish descent in Great Britain 

message: There's some sort of bug involving  and  in the citation at the end of the resignation section - I had a go at fixing it (I'm an Uncyclopedia admin) but am unfamiliar with citations, so having previewed my changes (I didn't save them) and made matters worse I decided it might be best to highlight here and hope someone notices...! 94.197.168.62 (talk) 16:20, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Bug

message: So if his parents were Mary and Ian Campbell, how did he end up with the name "Kennedy"?--ukexpat (talk) 14:28, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Just an editing mistake, I think -  - this source says Kennedy.  I've corrected it.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:58, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

message: Cause of death? 23:32, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: unknown at present – SchroCat (talk) 05:59, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Our treatment of the  alleged initial post mortem results doesn't seem to be acceptable. Neither The Mirror nor the Daily Record are great sources, they are (or were) stablemates and they are using words such as "reportedly" (each supporting each other?). That more tests have been ordered is a quoted statement from Police Scotland, which is fine but also perfectly normal - happens all the time, as with umpteen deaths in my own family. I'd just wait until the PM results are actually announced or else find a decent source such as the BBC, which has not in fact carried the story, as far as I can see. We are not a news site and do not need to offer a blow-by-blow account. - Sitush (talk) 09:20, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: quite right. There is no need for this--nonsense ferret 12:01, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I've trimmed the final sentence. The "sudden and non-suspicious" quote appears in other more reliable sources so I've left it in (and will try and find something to replace the extant source) and replaced the source with something reliable. - SchroCat (talk) 12:11, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps we should ask his "secret lover"? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:20, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cause of death? 

message: Was he really succeeded as Chancellor by Edward Snowden the American National Security Agency leaker as the link currently indicates?  Somehow, I doubt it.  2600:1004:B144:5853:AD78:66A8:F731:730A (talk) 03:49, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Not as Chancellor, but as Rector of Glasgow University.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:49, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edward Snowden 

message: This could use some expansion and fact checking if anyone has the books to hand. In particular:
* At what point did Kennedy join the SDP? And was he someone who had associated with social democratic tendencies pre 1981, did he consciously opt for the SDP over the Liberals in the Alliance or was he one of many new recruits who were really joining "the Alliance" and became members of whichever party was locally dominant and/or had the local nomination?
* Currently the article implies his position on the SDP-Liberal merger was due to Liberal activists in his seat but the sole source is the memoirs of David Owen, who opposed the merger completely. From recollection Owen's memoirs basically argued that Kennedy and Maclennan were MPs for historically Liberal seats whereas Owen, Cartwright and Barnes had broken new ground with the new politics of the SDP - and this informed each's approach to the merger.
** (Of course many a Liberal activist of the era disputes the idea that Rosie Barnes won her seat as anything other than the candidate supported by the Liberal by-election machine.)
* What was Kennedy's position on the detail of the merger, the subsequent battles over aspects of the merged party (especially the name row) and then the Ashdown era debate about where the Lib Dems should be politically positioned?
* The article suggests Kennedy only became a party spokesperson some six years after first being elected which seems astonishing given the small number of Alliance MPs (to the point that the notion of a front and back bench becomes absurd) let alone the tiny SDP contingent and also the need in 1988 to give the merger credibility with as strong an ex SDP showing as possible. Historic lists of third party spokespersons are rare but surely he was doing something for the SDP/SLD in this period?
* There's also not too much about his heavy media appearances - next to Paddy Ashdown and perhaps Simon Hughes (the only London Lib Dem MP at the time who also had some studios in his constituency) Kennedy was by far the most well-known Lib Dem MP who could be found on all manner of chat and panel shows, not just HIGNFY.
Timrollpickering (talk) 21:04, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early political career 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In the "personal life" section, it mentions his breaching the smoking ban. Whilst the media usually does not hesitate to give significant coverage when legislators break the law, I am finding no sign that the media continued to dwell on this incident after the immediate reporting of it. This is understandable given that the incident (reported 6th July 2007) was only a few days after the ban came into force (1st July 2007), and did not result in any legal action. So considering the rather transitory coverage it got, it seems like a slightly odd detail to mention in juxtaposition with the significant events in the "personal life" section: his marriage, divorce, and the death of his father. Should we get rid of it? --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 18:15, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  breaching smoking ban 

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