The Sketch: Simon Carr

Charlie's telling it straight - probably

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It was the first victory in the war against international terrorism. The Lib Dems refused to be intimidated. Their annual party conference would proceed. It did proceed. It is proceeding. The fundamental values endure.

Justice. Freedom. Democracy. Lib Dem party conferences. Charles Kennedy made what was billed as an emergency statement. It was certainly written in a hurry.

"We meet against an unimaginable backdrop," he said. True. But while it is unimaginable, it is partially describable. Let me have a dash at Mr Kennedy's unimaginable backdrop. It is a giant representation of a bird on the back wall of the conference set. It is a yellow bird; its wings are not attached to its body. Its posture suggests it is flying. It may be throwing up its pinions in despair at its inability to fly. It is the symbol that Liberal Democrats have adopted to express their core values. No one knows why.

Mr Kennedy continued. "It is hard to find words adequate to give proper voice by way of response, far less respect." Yes. Or, possibly. Or, what was that again? There was no time to unravel the syntax.

"How can day-to-day vocabulary match up to such sheer criminality?" he asked. He had no answer to that interesting question. And nor did his speech writer. Great events have cruelly exposed Mr Kennedy's day-to-day vocabulary, no less than his day-to-day thought processes.

"The scandal that is terrorism is all about civil liberties," he said. You may not have realised that. Civil liberty is the Lib Dem thing. That's why they're so incredibly centre stage just now.

"The Midwest can almost be a country which is a very different country from the rest of the country," he said, "which, when you think about it, itself is a continent." Of course, if you wanted to think about it, and there's no obvious reason to do so, you'd quickly realise that America isn't a continent at all. This is by the way – as is Charles Kennedy.

"Do remember," he warned us, "War is not the word. Nor is crusade. Resolve is." Is the word "resolve"? Not "handbag"? Not "ratatouille"? Resolve. Resolve produces resolutions. Resolutions passed in the heat of conference condemning international terrorism. That will sort it out. Won't it?

Mr Kennedy's final rallying cry was expressed in something very different from day-to-day vocabulary. "In the face of such violation," he told 3,000 delegates, "be inviolate!" Did that vocabulary "match up to such sheer criminality?" Yes, it very probably did.