Charles Kennedy fires the starting pistol on the Lib Dem leadership campaign;

as told to Sky News

Sources close to the situation believe that the "Orange Book" group of bright young things in the Lib Dems are keen to have a "placeholder" successor to Charles Kennedy - Sir Menzies Campbell - for the time being. They believe that the grass roots would support Menzies who would would give way to one of the Orange Bookers such as Nick Clegg, Mark Oaten, David Laws or Ed Davey at a later date. We would back Menzies - currently 3.4 on Betfair and Lay Simon Hughes - Last trade on Betfair at 4.6 Paddy Power have the Lib Dem replacement market here; Update: Menzies Campbell and probably Simon Hughes say they won't STAND AGAINST CK - We're sticking to our guns on Menzies being the likely next leader of the Lib Dems. We also believe that there will be increasing pressure on CK to just step down - what was wanted by many in the party before, which won't have changed after today's desperate act from Kennedy.

Mike Smithson has a useful article here;