The distress signals from Charles Kennedy were plain to see. As he sat backstage at a Westminster television studio a fortnight ago, being made up for a live television broadcast, production staff noticed how tired and clammy he looked.

One quipped that he needed “an extra dab of make-up” because his face was so ruddy and the bags under his eyes had bags of their own.

The Liberal Democrat leader appeared to be drained of self-confidence and was muttering lines that he had prepared for the show. “He kept repeating to himself under his breath a couple of statistics,” said one onlooker. “It wasn’t exactly rocket science, but he seemed to be struggling.”

Last week Kennedy was also struggling with a mutiny in his ranks. He faced the biggest crisis of his six-year leadership of the party when senior colleagues put him on probation. Many of them believe that he is drifting and are worried about the direction the party is taking.

Despite a charm offensive laced with a strong dose of mea culpa, he failed to get a ringing endorsement that he should remain as leader until the next election.

The scene at the TV studio was reminiscent of Kennedy’s general election gaffe when, exhausted, he stumbled over tax figures at a media conference. Blaming his young baby for his lack of sleep, Kennedy appeared to suffer a fit of the stammers when asked to say who would be worse off from the party’s tax policies. “You are talking in the region of £20,000, err . . . yes. If you take a double income couple, £20,000 each, that’s what you are talking about . . . £40,000,” he said before being rescued by colleagues who were looking on aghast.

The rumours about his heavy nights and predilection for whisky persist, but more significantly his judgment and policies are now being questioned. His principled stance against the Iraq war may have won votes, but all the bravado about becoming the “real opposition” and “decapitating” senior Tories has long since passed.

“There is a sense of drift which has been exacerbated by the election of David Cameron as Conservative leader,” notes one MP, pointing to a YouGov poll that gave the Lib Dems just 18% of the vote.

With the Tories in the ascendant and the Lib Dems slumping back firmly to third place, it seems that the party will not tolerate any more drift. This week the Lib Dems, usually desperate for publicity, were taciturn. In private, however, the knives are out for Kennedy.

One Lib Dem MP, asked if Kennedy was the problem, said: “Clearly there’s a f****** problem. Every leadership has its lifetime and this one has run its course.”

What has turned the nice party nasty — and what now for “chat show Charlie”, whose Westminster run appears to be coming to an end?

WHEN he set off last Tuesday for the 30-second walk from his Commons office to the committee room where the Lib Dem “cabinet” meets every week, Kennedy felt ready to take on all-comers.

Rumours had been circulating for days that he was set to resign at the party’s spring conference. There had also been a trickle of stories about dubious donations as well as the election of a fresh young Tory leader. Those events have put Kennedy’s leadership under the spotlight.

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