Highland Council seasoned politicians shed tears yesterday during heartfelt tributes to former MP Charles Kennedy whose funeral will be held today.
The highly charged speeches came at the start of a special full council meeting in Inverness to elect new officials marking a new era for the authority which is now under the command of a minority independent administration.
Liberal Democrat group leader David Alston, who a fortnight ago terminated a three-year-old pact with SNP and Labour coalition colleagues, began the meeting with a five-minute tribute to his late party colleague.
He twice broke down, while sharing memories of Mr Kennedy, describing him as “a committed internationalist, a compassionate and principled politician, a great Scot and a respected and loved Highlander”.
Mr Alston asked hushed colleagues to pause the next time they pass an Invernessian artwork that he said encapsulated the goodness of Charles Kennedy.
Three birch trees in Church Street, he said, “seem to erupt through the paving stones. Just like these birch trees, Charles erupted through the flat, constraining paving stones that pass for much of politics and he brought life to everything he was committed to.”
Mr Alston hoped Mr Kennedy’s legacy would be “recovering a politics of principle and respect.”
He touched briefly on Mr Kennedy’s tragic alcoholism.
New council leader Margaret Davidson revealed that her own family had suffered through its own experience of alcohol abuse.
Describing the ex MP as “a fine Highlander and an egalitarian,” she later explained that some of her mother’s relatives had suffered due to alcohol problems.
Labour group leader Jimmy Gray said: “He was an excellent communicator who could speak to anyone, and he would always give you the impression when you spoke to him that what you were saying was the most important thing he heard that day. That’s a most unusual ability for a politician to have.”
Opposition leader Maxine Smith fondly recalled how Mr Kennedy backed a crusade of which she was part, which ultimately saved five rural Highland primary schools from closure.
Around 50 councillors and officials will travel by coach to Mr Kennedy’s funeral in his home village of Caol.
Funeral plans, Page 11