Paul Rowen MP gives full support to Charles Kennedy

Charles Kennedy

Rochdale's Liberal Democrat MP Paul Rowen has described the decision of Charles Kennedy to admit to personal alcohol problems as "a brave statement."  Paul said, "The first stage in any battle against alcohol is admitting that there is a problem - I am happy that Charles is seeking treatment and hopefully he has turned a corner.  My support for Charles Kennedy is widely known and I will continue to back him unequivocally in any leadership contest.  We should have less people shooting their mouths off and more collective leadership before a vital set of local elections." 

Sir Cyril Smith MBE said, "I'll give you 3 words - compassion, loyalty and liberty.  They are amongst the core values of a Liberal and I think we should at least give Charles the opportunity to continue to carry out the fine job I believe he is doing.  Recently he gave everyone in the Borough a lift when he signed our petition against the potentially disastrous cuts at Rochdale Infirmary; he is the only leading political figure in the country to even take an interest."

Councillor Alan Taylor said, "It is no coincidence that here in Rochdale, under Charles Kennedy, we have regained Rochdale from Labour, gained 2 MEPs and now have a record number of councillors in Rochdale.  We are the biggest group on Rochdale Council.  Charles Kennedy has played a massive part in ensuring that we are in a prime position to take control of Rochdale Council this year!"

Commenting on Chris Davies MEP's comments that "Charles should step down" - Paul Rowen MP said, "Of course Chris is entitled to his opinion, I just don't happen to agree with him.  As a North-West MEP he should recognise the huge part that Charles Kennedy, along with himself, played in strengthening our position here in the North-West.  We have a record number of councillors, we recently doubled our amount of MP's in the North-West and are in a prime position to gain many more seats in the next General Election."

Paul continued, "Charles has been honest about a personal situation that he is publicly facing up to, unlike Tony Blair who has chosen to lie about issues such as his youngest son's controversial MMR jab.  Even worse he continually publicly lied both nationally and internationally about the Iraq War."