Kennedy: the comeback

In a packed Brighton conference hall on Tuesday, Charles Kennedy will step on to a podium before 5,000 of the Liberal Democrat faithful.

The speech will be a nerve-racking moment not only for the former leader - but also for Sir Menzies Campbell, his successor.

For Mr Kennedy, it will be his first major speech since being forced to step down over a serious drink problem. For Sir Menzies, there is the prospect that he could be upstaged at his first major conference.

That the party is preparing such a warm reception is hardly surprising. Mr Kennedy has always been the darling of the party faithful - even at the party's spring 2004 conference in Southport, when he looked pale and sweated profusely amid rumours of drinking binges and no-shows.

Friends say he is aware of the impact his speech could make and is being careful "not to rock the boat". He has been finessing his address, and rehearsing acerbic asides about Tony Blair and David Cameron.

Immediately after his forced resignation, friends say he "went into his shell". In the past few months, he has rarely been spotted in the Commons, sitting on the back benches at Prime Minister's Questions and nipping into the lobbies to vote. Some MPs who plotted against him say he has not spoken to them.

What has encouraged him is not only the support of friends, but the warm reception from ordinary people. "Recently he has met people and they are pleased to see him. So he feeds off that," said a friend.

Helping him are his wife Sarah, whose father died last week, and a close-knit group of friends, including Lord Newby, his former chief of staff, the millionaire businessman Lord Razzall and his partner Baroness Bonham Carter, Jackie Rowley, his former press secretary, and her partner, the former BBC radio journalist James Cox, and Anna Werrin, his loyal former office gatekeeper.

Mr Kennedy has had a chance to experience ordinary life for the first time in years. Last week, mums were surprised to see him dropping off Donald, his 16-month-old son, at nursery.

Eight months on, Mr Kennedy is making a gradual return to the public eye. Last week, he was spotted at the launch parties for books by Sandra Howard, wife of Michael Howard, and Robert Harris. Although he has refused most invitations to revive his role as "chat-show Charlie", he has presented a couple of TV programmes. But it is his emerging role as ambassador for the Lib Dem cause that he has been throwing himself into.

He has been meeting liberal leaders around the world and has travelled several times to Moscow. This week he will play host to Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Russian Democratic Party, Yabloko, who is speaking at the Lib Dem conference. Close friends pour cold water on the notion that he has ambitions for a swift return to frontline politics.

His successor, Sir Menzies, told The Independent on Sunday: "We would be very, very foolish not to have Charles Kennedy in the front bench of the Liberal Democrats. If you walk down Brick Lane with Charles Kennedy, you know just how good he is at connecting with the public."

Sir Menzies said he was "looking forward" to Mr Kennedy's appearance at this year's conference. But he stressed: "This conference is not about Charles Kennedy and me. It is about the Liberal Democrats."