Desperate to find a way out of the mess the party found itself in after half its frontbench MPs said they would no longer serve under Kennedy, Hughes had a plan. He suggested that Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader, should take over as temporary leader until after the local elections in May.

It would give Kennedy a chance to distance himself from his drink problem. A full leadership race could then take place with all three men as possible candidates.

It was the last chance offered to Kennedy, but it was not enough. He rejected it.

Instead, at his home in Kennington, south London, he took further soundings from his advisers and at last understood the situation was hopeless. At 3pm he travelled to the party’s headquarters in Cowley Street and announced his resignation.

Kennedy’s challenge to take on all-comers had been ignored. His determination to spend the weekend in quiet reflection had lasted 15 hours.

The sequence of events that ended his political life as the leader of Britain’s third party began on Thursday afternoon.

A former press aide to Kennedy, Daisy McAndrew, now a political reporter for ITV News, had drawn up a “dossier” and was about to run a piece on the evening news that he had a drink problem.

Rushing to pre-empt this and with 10 minutes to spare before the evening bulletin, Kennedy made his admission live at a press conference at 5.50pm.

However, it was a build-up of pressure over weeks that had led to that moment. By later that evening 10 of the Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet had signed a letter of no confidence calling on him to stand down.

Matthew Taylor, who led Kennedy’s leadership campaign when he replaced Paddy Ashdown in 1999, was close to tears on Friday afternoon when he urged him to stand down. “Yesterday was a tremendously difficult moment for Charles, and he spoke bravely and well,” said Taylor of Kennedy’s dramatic confession that he was an alcoholic. “But Charles needs now to reflect on what is best for his own health, his family and for the party.”

Pleading with him, he added: “Charles, you cannot go on.”

In the savage parlance of the Westminster village, Taylor had come out of the shadows to stab his friend “in the front”.

Others who wanted Kennedy out were equally blunt. “If you were looking for someone to play Tarzan, you wouldn’t employ a one-legged actor. And if we’re looking for someone to lead our party, we wouldn’t go for an alcoholic,” said Lady Tonge, a Lib Dem peer.

At 6pm, 25 of the 62 Lib Dem MPs delivered a letter to Kennedy urging him to go.

Many who have been close to him in the past explain this sudden outburst in terms of pent up frustration. Kennedy, they say, has been taken aside by friends and colleagues on many occasions over the past few years and told to clean up his act.

Each time he had promised to reform, only to relapse into drink a few months later. When Kennedy’s office described these people as “cowards” last week for failing to put their heads above the parapet, several saw themselves as having no option but to go public. “To say we were cowardly was ridiculous,” said one. “We had tried to do the decent thing by saying quietly that things must change. He could have gone with dignity but he has chosen not to.”

Kennedy’s public declaration that he was a recovering alcoholic was seen by some as “emotional blackmail”.

“This is something that has happened over a long period,” Taylor explained yesterday.

Kennedy has not been helped by the changing culture of the parliamentary party; of the 25 who signed the letter calling for him to go, 10 were elected only last May. “We all campaigned very hard to get here,” said one. “And yet when we got to Westminster we found there was no drive or direction.”

The modernising wing now has to decide who it wants as Kennedy’s successor, with victory for Campbell, “the bridge to the next generation”, a possible dream ticket. As one MP said: “Young cardinals prefer old popes.”

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