IN MARCH 2004 a delegation of his party’s most senior figures entered Charles Kennedy’s office with an ultimatum: that he must sort out his “health” problems in time for elections three months later.

Sir Menzies Campbell, his deputy leader, Lord Rennard, the Lib Dem chief executive, Matthew Taylor, then the chairman of the parliamentary party, and Andrew Stunell, his Chief Whip, were all present.

Their tone was civilised and their message couched in terms that offered their beleaguered leader their support. But they left no doubt that this was conditional on his addressing what Lib Dems have until now called the “health issue”.

“We took the opportunity to say he can’t do this again. He must get well, get fit, look after himself,” one of those present said. “We said these elections are very important, here is how we can help you to do that.”

Hence the significance of Mr Kennedy’s reference yesterday of coming to cope with a drink problem “over the past 18 months”. He has been under pressure from senior Lib Dems since early in his leadership to make such a public statement.

The Times has been told that on at least one occasion Mr Kennedy agreed to undergo a treatment programme for alcoholism at a clinic in the United States. Sir Menzies was to stand in temporarily as leader. But, at the last minute, Mr Kennedy got cold feet and backed out of the plan.

This explains why he referred in his statement yesterday to a wish that he had publicly acknowledged his drinking problem previously, calling it a relief finally to have done so.

The calculation of Lib Dem colleagues at the time was that such a public declaration by Mr Kennedy would elicit wide public sympathy. The circumstances now are very different, with Mr Kennedy having been forced to make an admission while fighting for survival and having explicitly denied last month that he had had treatment for a drink problem.

His treatment over the past 18 months appears to have been in response to the crisis over his leadership sparked by his failure to appear in the Commons, and the Budget statement that followed it.

The significance of these events of March 2004 was not whether Mr Kennedy was incapacitated by illness or by alcoholism. It was that an ominous number of his MPs believed the latter to be a cause.

In the months after receiving the delegation, Mr Kennedy appears to have made great strides with his treatment. He and his party performed well in the local and European elections in June that year.

In September, at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth, Mr Kennedy coyly but significantly admitted in an interview with The Times that he barely drank alcohol any longer — or “hardly bothered”, as he put it. One year on, at the party’s pre-election spring conference in Harrogate, the Lib Dem leader made some impromptu closing remarks in which he declared that he had “ never been happier, both personally and politically” and publicly thanked his wife, Sarah, for her support. It is clear now to what he was referring.

So why the crisis now? The reason Mr Kennedy is fighting to save his leadership is that since the general election he appears to have suffered lapses in his battle with alcohol in June and in November, when rumours began circulating among MPs about his behaviour.

As The Times revealed last month, his performance at a speech at the London School of Economics, a pre-election campaign trip by train to Newcastle upon Tyne that he abandoned en route and his performance at Prime Minister’s Questions and in his Shadow Cabinet all fuelled concerns. Again it was significant that Mr Kennedy said yesterday that he had not had a drink for the past two months, before saying that he “did not intend to in future”.

Mr Kennedy appears to have made two mistakes. The first was to ignore the advice and warnings from colleagues who wished him well to get professional treatment for his drink problem much earlier in his leadership. The second was, once he finally agreed, to try to do so privately instead of publicly admitting that he was receiving treatment.

As an intensely private man his wish not to do so is understandable. His inner circle of trusted confidants is small and tight. Even several long-time friends guessed at rather that knew of his alcoholism.

The upshot was that even when he was pleased with his own progress in response to treatment over its first year, parliamentary colleagues were unaware of the steps he was taking to deal with it. Now they know. Has he left it too late?

HIS OWN WORDS

Last month David Dimbleby asked: “Has it been a battle to stay off the booze, have you had to have medical support in any way at all?”

Mr Kennedy replied: “No, no, no, that is not the case, it is a matter on all fronts - if there’s something my doctor really wants me to do over this holiday period, as a matter of fact, it is give up smoking.”

In the same ITV1 interview, Mr Kennedy added: “I am actually an extremely moderate and infrequent consumer of alcohol, as a matter of fact.”

Mr Kennedy told delegates at the Lib Dem conference in 2004: “There is more exercise there’s no doubt about that. Alcohol is next to zero, and I’m trying — although I cannot honestly look you in the eye and say I’ve yet conquered Everest — but I’m trying to cut out the nicotine”

In an interview in 2004 on ITV1, Mr Kennedy said: “I certainly do not have a drink problem, no.”

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