Charles Kennedy was born in Inverness on November 25 1959 and brought up and educated at Lochaber High School in Fort William. At the University of Glasgow he was elected President of the Union, won the British Observer Mace for university debating and graduated with MA Joint Honours in Politics and Philosophy in 1982.

He then worked as a journalist and broadcaster with BBC Highland in Inverness before being awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to attend Indiana University in the United States, where he taught public speaking and carried out graduate research in speech communication, political rhetoric and British politics.

By Easter 1983 he was working towards a PhD at Indiana when the opportunity arose to seek the SDP nomination for Ross, Cromarty and Skye. He made a flying weekend visit home for the candidate hustings, won from a field of six in a ballot of party members and returned full-time to the UK.

The general election followed almost immediately and less than six weeks later he was elected to the House of Commons, defeating the sitting Government minister.

During his time in Parliament he has served as a spokesman on a range of welfare state issues, first for the SDP-Liberal Alliance, now the Liberal Democrats. He also served in the mid-eighties on the Health and Social Services Select Committee.

Additionally, he was a member of the Commons Select Committee that set up and introduced the televising of the chamber.

Charles Kennedy was the first SDP MP to back the merger with the Liberals after the 1987 general election. He moved the successful motion to this effect at the party conference that year. In 1990 he was elected UK Party President and re-elected for a second two year term in 1992.

In 1989, Charles Kennedy was given the "Member to Watch" award by the Spectator magazine. He has been a regular newspaper columnist, broadcaster and was Associate Editor of The House Magazine.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Between the 1992 and 1997 general elections he was the party spokesperson on European Affairs, and was team leader on Agriculture and Rural Affairs, until his election as leader of the Liberal Democrats in August 1999.

In June 2001, he led the Liberal Democrats to their best ever General Election result - the most successful for any third party since 1929.

To read more about Charles' political beliefs, click here to read the preface to the paperback edition of The Future of Politics by Charles Kennedy MP.