The former leader of the Liberal Democrats has died suddenly at home aged 55.

Just heard that on the news. 55 is no age.

The report said no suspucious circumstances but did reference his 'heavy drinking'.

RIP Chatshow Charlie

Such a shame. Always seemed to me to be a genuinely nice man.

A politician with some principles. Voted against the Iraq war and the only lib dem MP who voted not to join the clegg cameron coalition.

Certainly an improvement on that tosspot he took over from Paddy Pantsdown.
Saw him pontificating as many times as he could get himself on tv yesterday over Kennedy's career.
He revulses me. Creep!

The mainstream media never missed an opportunity to further the notion that Kennedy was a "heavy drinker". Indeed, the (selectively applied) claim was pushed so aggressively it effectively ruined his career. Even now, before any attempt at post-mortem is carried out, many in the press are tentatively suggesting it was the booze that killed him.

I really don't know enough about Kennedy's private life to support or refute the above. But given the boundless affinity Westminster MPs have for all things alcohol it does make me wonder why they only chose to pick on Kennedy.

To me it has all the makings of a political "narrative" meant to curtail any further investigation. I mean, maybe he was a drunk. But does anyone bother asking WHY was he a drunk? He seemed to function perfectly well for many years and then ... BANG ... he's suddenly bouncing off the walls at the party conference (just in time for an important election in which the Lib-Dems are to play a pivotal role).

On more than one occasion he's seemed on the verge of saying something about "disloyalty" around the time of him standing down and then shut up. Was he done in by his own side? Or were the boys down at GCHQ sniffing into someone else's private correspondence?

Why don't you add it to your ridiculous Unmediated History thread as work in progress?
Not least because he was a Kennedy ... and we need to learn the real truth.

There! There! Does baby feel better now?

*crassness warning*


Was there more than 3 shots?

Considerably more than three shots!
We're talking gallons.

I've a feeling that's what you meant.
Two birds with one stone.
And if you didn't, you missed a trick.

The phrase "a functioning alcoholic" is well known, not all alcoholics look or act drunk, some hold down very responsible jobs indeed can't do the job without alcohol in their blood, not saying it applied to Kennedy but they aren't all laying in the street with a bottle in hand shouting random things at the sky.

I have known two people who have lost their lives to alcoholism, one deliberately, one we weren't so sure but neither did he try and rehabilitate, when you open their fridge to find no food and an admission that they have not eaten anything solid in weeks and are relying on the calories in a bottle of vodka, and yet that person stood in front of you is acting and talking perfectly lucidly then you change your perception of alcoholics.

Its a terrible drug in the mind and it destroys the body organs from within, it should never be underestimated.