Ex-Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown 77 dies

Former Liberal Democrats leader Paddy Ashdown has died at the age of 77.

Jeremy John Durham Ashdown popularly known as Paddy Ashdown, a former Royal Marine officer, was first elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, a party then badly in need of military-style discipline.

He was born in Delhi, India, on 27 February 1941, into an Irish family with a long record of service in the administration of the sub-continent. He boasted Irish nationalist leader Daniel O’Connell among his ancestors.

His father was an officer in the Indian Army who later faced a court martial for refusing to abandon his troops during the retreat of Dunkirk. The charges however were eventually thrown out.

The Young Ashdown spent his childhood years on a farm his father had purchased in County Down, Northern Ireland, attending Bedford School, in England, where is Irish brogue led to the nickname Paddy.

Ashdown saw active service in Borneo and the Persian Gulf before joining the elite Special Boat Service, the seagoing equivalent of the SAS.

 

In 1967, he went to Hong Kong and learned Mandarin and qualified as an interpreter, before returning to Northern Ireland where he commanded a commando company in Belfast at a time when the troubles were raging.

 

In 1972, he quit the Royal Marines and joined the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) where he worked with diplomatic cover in Geneva liaising with several United Nations departments.

 

Initially a labour supporter he had shown little interest in politics so there was surprise when he decided to quit his comfortable life in Switzerland and became a active member of the Liberal party.

In 1976, he was selected as the Liberal candidate in his wife’s home constituency of Yeovil which had been held by right-wing Tory MP John Peyton for over two decades.

Ashdown set out to squeeze the Labour vote and in the 1979, general election, took his party to second place, although still more than 10,000 votes behind Peyton.

 

He gave up the job with the foreign office, and took a job with a subsidiary of the Westland Helicopter company based in Yeovil.

In 1983 election when John Peyton decided to stand down, he won the seat with just over 50 per cent of the popular vote.

 

In 1988, the SDP and the Liberal Party formally merged as the Social and Liberal Democrats, later shortened to the Liberal Democrats.

When former Liberal leader David Steel declined to stand for the leadership of the new party, Ashdown comfortably saw off Alan Beith, the only other candidate. Ashdown in the 1992 election got his party into shape and despite all problems, the new party suffered a net loss of just two seats.