This was the dilemma that many faced over Charles Kennedy’s drink problem. As Greg Hurst’s new biography of Kennedy reveals, Lib Dem MPs had known what was going on for years before it became public. So, as it happened, did many Westminster reporters and commentators. What should we have done about it and when?

In my case, things were complicated by the fact that I had been friends with Kennedy long before I started writing about politics. When I was a young financial journalist in the early 1980s, my housemate was working for Roy Jenkins. She brought home this sweet, rather diffident young MP, like us in his early twenties, new to politics and new to London. We took him under our wing and often invited him round.

As our paths started to cross professionally much later, Kennedy and I saw less of each other and felt obliged to cultivate a more appropriate distance. I knew that he drank more than he should. This was unlike others such as Lord Irvine of Lairg, then Lord Chancellor, who happily downed two bottles of fine claret with a weekday lunch with no ill effects. My view was that, as long as Kennedy’s drinking didn’t affect his ability to do his job, I had no duty — possibly even no right — to write about it.

Then I started hearing anecdotes of Kennedy teetering drunkenly at parties or — once — being restrained by colleagues from speaking in the Commons chamber for fear that he would embarrass himself. There were periodic reports too, though, that he was sorting himself out, giving up drink, getting fit. I decided to give him another chance.

Finally, in September 2004, I heard an explosive chapter-and-verse account of Kennedy’s alcoholism from a highly placed party source. Apparently the Lib Dem leader had twice been unable to perform at big parliamentary occasions because he was either too drunk or too hung over (the latter may have been compounded by a stomach upset; there are conflicting accounts). Moreover, I was told, a delegation of MPs had asked Sir Menzies Campbell whether he would take over from Kennedy, and had then delivered an ultimatum to their leader: give up the booze or hand over to Ming.

This was an extraordinary story, unknown to anybody outside the party. I knew that it would be highly damaging both to Kennedy and to my relationship with him if I wrote it. But it was also important and true. If the leader’s drinking had become such a problem that it made him unable to do his job, that fact had to be revealed to voters. If I sat on the story to protect a friend, my integrity as an independent commentator would be in bits.

So I cross-checked the story with another source, took a deep breath and wrote the column. Kennedy’s office went berserk. They couldn’t afford to allow his alcoholism to be a matter of public record, so they tried to intimidate us into printing a correction. We had to judge whether we could win a libel action, where it is assumed that what you have written is untrue. But would my sources be willing to back us in open court? In a contest between truth and loyalty, which would win? Most Lib Dem MPs had already chosen loyalty over truth by obfuscating frequently to protect their leader, a position that made them very uncomfortable. But it had become a habit.

There was just one sentence in my column that I had made ambiguous to shield my source. I said that Kennedy was so nervous before the Budget that he “decided to fortify himself in advance”. The drinking, I had been told, had taken place the night before, but in the morning Kennedy’s office had been unable to rouse him. This — the night before or pre-Budget — was the sticking point with Kennedy’s people.

In the end, we agreed to print a “clarification” — not a correction. It acknowledged that the Lib Dem leader had not been drinking on the actual day of the Budget debate and apologised for any “misunderstanding”.

Our rivals were delighted that The Times had been forced to print an apology. The real story that they missed in their glee, however, was that Kennedy had not denied any of our revelations. Had the facts been untrue, he would have taken us to court or to the Press Complaints Commission.

If we had toughed it out, perhaps Kennedy would have been ousted sooner and a better leader would have won more seats at the general election. And if other newspapers had not allowed their professional rivalry to get the better of their judgment, the revelations would have been spread more widely.

As it was, the party took another year and four months to face up to the problem. How extraordinary, in a country with such supposedly probing media, that he was able to hold on for so long.

Too fat? Shhh . . .

While we’re on the subject, a surprising survey out yesterday showed that, while 90 per cent of GPs said they felt comfortable talking about alcohol or drug abuse with their patients, nearly half said that they avoided discussing a patient’s obesity. What was that about tiptoeing round the sleeping elephant? We all know how much obesity contributes to ill-health. So here’s a suggestion to doctors. You don’t have to use words such as “overeating” or “under-exercising”. Call it “food abuse” if it makes you feel better.

Marriage misery

The Government’s climbdown on banning forced marriage looks ever more pusillanimous. Even the Outer Hebrides failed to provide sanctuary for 12-year-old Molly Campbell against a father determined to take her off to Pakistan.

Ministers had been all set to introduce a law prohibiting forced marriages until June, when they suddenly claimed that such a law would drive the practice underground. Well, it is hardly overground now. Children are duped into going to South Asia for a “holiday” and return unwillingly married to a stranger, having also been raped in the process. No wonder young Asian women are three times more likely to commit suicide than those of other races.

The Muslim Council of Britain and other Muslim groups claimed that such a law would stigmatise their communities. But it is the barbaric practice itself that stigmatises the Muslim community. If its leaders want to combat Islamophobia, they should beg the Government to take any steps possible to outlaw it.

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