CHARLES KENNEDY finally laid to rest the ghost of Lib-Lab pacts yesterday when he declared that his party would not prop up Labour if there were a hung Parliament after the general election.
The Lib Dem leader, who has already ruled out an alliance with the Conservatives, said that it would be wrong for his party to overturn the verdict of the electorate.
His statement will be seen as killing off the party’s ambition, formed under his predecessor, Lord Ashdown of Norton-Sub-Hamdon, to form a centre-left alliance with Labour. Lord Ashdown even spoke to Tony Blair before the 1997 election to discuss how many Lib Dems would join his first Cabinet.
Mr Kennedy severed all links with his forerunner’s ambition at his conference question-and-answer session.
Seeking to avoid a question about whether he could work better with Mr Blair or Gordon Brown, Mr Kennedy said that if Labour needed Lib Dem support to stay in power after losing its three-figure Commons majority, “that would represent a massive vote of no confidence”.
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He said: “If we have increased our credibility, our level of support in terms of votes and seats, are we going to turn around to the British people and say: ‘We are going to prop up a Labour Government that you have effectively dismissed?’ I think not.”
Mr Kennedy took a swipe at Michael Howard, the Tory leader. He said that he would not advise other parties on choosing their leader, but added: “If I did propose the Conservative leader, I might have made a more sensible choice”.