Charles Kennedy gave a frank account yesterday of the illness that led to him to miss the Budget earlier this month and admitted he was "surprised" that the "caustic reaction" in the media continued for as long as it did.

Mr Charles Kennedy has given his colleagues a promise to "improve his lifestyle". On television he amplified this, explaining that he did not intend to relinquish social drinking but, rather, to go on long walks, to "take to the hills", as he put it. Can you imagine any of Mr Kennedy's predecessors - say, David Lloyd George, H H Asquith or W E Gladstone - either being asked to make, or, more unlikely still, going on to make such a promise?

Charles Kennedy reassured MPs about the state of his health yesterday in an address to the parliamentary party in which he stressed he had recovered from his "stomach bug".

The Monday Interview: Leader Of The Liberal Democrats

THE STRANGE Death of Conservative England, part 23. The defection of Shaun Woodward is one of those lightning flashes which lets us see that what we thought was a familiar landscape has assumed a new shape. It seemed that British politics was settling back into its comfortable two-party assumptions. The Conservatives - at least until their latest disaster over the London mayoralty - seemed to be slowly climbing back to a position of credible opposition, a process which would always take two elections.

WHAT IS the mental age of the Shadow Cabinet? William Hague and his gang of cheeky lads seem to think that the art of politics is about pulling clever tricks. As with Richmal Crompton's schoolboy scoundrels, the joke usually rebounds on just William rather than his intended victim. The stunt last week was to get Mr Blair to say "actually" as often as possible during Prime Minister's Question Time, so Tory backbenchers could giggle at him and generally lark about. The Daily Telegraph went into ecstasy, which shows what sort of triumph it was for the New Tory Yah- boo-sucks Tendency. Is this serious opposition?

INFORMATION

MORE THAN a million British children living in poverty are not entitled to free school meals, and one-third of those who are eligible not taking them.

`There is no sign that the Tony Blair of October 1997 has since had a Damascene conversion to tribalism'

The leader of the Liberal Democrat Party replies to a leading article in which his party's continuing co-operation with the Labour Party was questioned

LORD OWEN, the former leader of the Social Democratic Party, has branded the Liberal Democrats "anarchists" and predicted that they would lose almost half their seats at the next general election.

TONY BLAIR was on the verge of forming a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats on two occasions since the general election, Paddy Ashdown will claim today.

Sir: John O'Farrell says the Liberal Democrats have the only candidate for London mayor who is not a household name ("There's no business like showbusiness - except politics", 11 November). Well, have I got news for him? Susan Kramer has received excellent press since being selected by a ballot of all our members in London. This makes her the only candidate to have the confidence of both her party and her leader.

WELFARE