Charles Kennedy

Charles Kennedy has claimed turnout may not fall as low as expected at the general election.

In an interview with this month's edition of the Parliamentary Monitor magazine, the Liberal Democrat leader says that events in Tony Blair's second term could inspire an angry "silent majority" to take part in the poll.

The war in Iraq and Labour's u-turn on university top-up fees could lead to many previous non-voters to protest, he claims, pointing to a higher than expected turnout in last year's US presidential poll.

Asked if he expects participation in the UK election to fall to its lowest ever level, he said: "I'm not so sure about that. That was the assumption in the States, and look what happened."

"That was the assumption in Iraq and look what happened.  I'm not sure that there is – I mean, there is a degree of scepticism about politicians and the political process, the trust factor. Sure, that is there. And there are a lot of people quite disenchanted.

"I think that you might find there would be a rather silent majority, to use that Richard Nixon phrase, who might be out there ready to vote and participate in a way that the polls aren't picking up.

"There's a lot of people angry over a lot of issues – whether it's student fees, whether it's Iraq, whether it's other things – who are thinking to themselves: 'Well, wait a minute, isn't it time to put a check on some of the ways in which Britain, if we're not careful, is going to drift in a more illiberal direction.'

"I think one of the big challenges of this election is to get through to those people and get them motivated to participate and to vote.
 
"This isn't a fundamentally apathetic country – where did those million people come from who went out into the streets one Saturday afternoon in not the best of weather to make their point against the Iraq war?

"That wasn't the usual suspects, that was predominantly people who'd never gone out and marched about anything in their life.

"So this isn't such an apathetic country, look at the response to the [tsunami] appeal over Christmas, a phenomenal amount. That wasn't driven by politicians, or by the Queen, or by the Archbishop of Canterbury – that was people just getting up and saying: 'I care about this, I'm going to do something.' I think there could be a latent resolve about this election."

'Springboard'

As the Lib Dems' spring conference gets underway in Harrogate, Kennedy also calls for the gathering to be a "springboard for the election"

"It's about enthusing the activists who are going to be delivering this performance up and down the country and it's about hitting our key themes and, again, just trying to get those to resonate through the media with the public," he says.

"It's about focussing everybody's sights in one direction with the same purpose. It's a good unifying event, and it's our last big shop window before the election proper.

"All the indications are that the conference is going to be a very upbeat affair. This party - there's no doubt about it and I'm not deceiving myself - is up for this election and is as positive about the prospects of this election. So it's up to me just to go out and help deliver it."

And he asks activists to take a positive message to voters in the country.

"I do want to say to people that the opportunity is here for us to register with people as never before," Kennedy says.

"We can't afford to waste precious time saying: 'Here are all the deficiencies of the other two parties'," Kennedy says.

"People are intelligent enough to work out what they think themselves. We've got to be positive about ourselves and indeed about Britain and what we can do to make things better.

"We're starting with a good country here and there's no reason why we can't make it better.

"So I want ours to be a very positive, optimistic, but determined election message, and I think we'll hear that in the conference in Harrogate."