SIR Ludovic Kennedy, the distinguished broadcaster, outspoken campaigner and committed atheist, died on Monday at a nursing home in Salisbury.
At the age of 80, Kennedy – an honorary associate of the National Secular Society – wrote All in the Mind – a Farewell to God in which he dismissed beliefs on which Christianity was founded as “preposterous”.
Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, told The Guardian:
Sir Ludovic was a stalwart supporter of the BHA and a progressive campaigner on many fronts. He will be sorely missed.
A lifelong Liberal – he once stood unsuccessfully as a candidate – Kennedy was lauded by the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, as
One of the great thinkers of his generation. His pursuit of justice and his championing of sometimes unpopular and controversial causes marked him out as a true liberal.
A vociferous advocate of assisted dying – one of his books is entitled Euthanasia: the Good Death – his belief in the right to die with dignity was born from watching his mother Rosalind’s last, painful months. He was president and co-founder of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society
He resigned from the Lib Dems in 2001 when the former leader Charles Kennedy refused to include the issue of voluntary euthanasia in the party’s election manifesto, though he later rejoined.
Kennedy’s books and campaigns to right judicial wrongs secured pardons and remissions of a number of sentences. His successes included the posthumous pardon of Timothy Evans, a lodger in the home of the serial killer John Christie, who was hanged for the murder of his baby daughter. In his book 10 Rillington Place, Kennedy pointed the finger at Christie, which led to a judicial inquiry. The case is said to have helped lead to the abolition of the death penalty.
Following a stint as a newsreader for ITN, he became the urbane presenter of Did You See on BBC2 and anchor on current affairs programmes such as This Week, Panorama, Midweek and 24 Hours. But it was campaigning work he found most fulfilling, once saying:
I became committed to revealing hidden truths, and propelled, compelled, by a very heady feeling of excitement.
His best-known campaigns involved the wrongful convictions of the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six for alleged terrorist acts.
Michael Mansfield QC said that Kennedy had a need to expose the truth where there had been cover-ups.
He was an eternal supporter of true justice. At a time when no one was questioning the British system, he was there. He opened everyone’s eyes. He challenged miscarriages of justice based on confessional evidence and people had to look again at the role these played in the justice system.
There aren’t too many campaigning journalists who are prepared to stand up to the system in the way he did. There is an important need for investigative, courageous journalists and there are fewer people than ever following in Ludovic’s shoes. Somebody needs to pick up the baton where he left off.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
October 21st, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Did not know of this man until this morning but he seems to have led a life in pursuit of truth and justice.
His work should serve as an example for journalists in all forms of media. The north American press could do with a few more the likes of Kennedy…..but that is a faint hope as the first thing interest groups learn early on is ….control the press you control the message.
Mr. Kennedy seems to have had his own message.
Thank you for bringing him to our attention.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:55 pm
He was a damn good writer. His book about the hunt for the Bismarck is a compelling read and inspired the film ‘Sink the Bismarck’. I was aware of him as a journalist and TV presenter long before I realised he was ‘one of us’. A good man, and a fine example of what a courageous and honest atheist should be.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Sorry to go off-topic, but why don’t the comments show as hierarchical anymore? I don’t know who needs responding to. Or is it, maybe, something lodged in my FireFox?
October 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Indeed, Mike…
Have you noticed that you’re not logged in any more, and have no way of doing so….?
Anyway, RIP, Ludo. One of the Good Guys.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Thanks, Tim. Glad to know it’s not just me.
Wish I could comment on topic, but, sheepishly, I’ll have to admit I’d never heard of the guy.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I read “All in the Mind” when first published – a good read, with well thought arguments. Ludovic Kennedy was one of the too few good guys, as Michael Mansfield has said, who will carry on the work?
October 21st, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Just discovered that you can’t edit your post either! This forum software is not very good, it has problems with Opera, IE & Firefox.
October 21st, 2009 at 6:08 pm
I’m afraid I’ve got to be a real smartypants and put you right there, valdemar – but don’t worry, that’s a misconception shared by many, including, for many years, myself! That great film “Sink The Bismarck!”(1960) was actually inspired by C. S. Forester’s book of 1959. Kennedy’s book was only published in 1975. Funnily enough I only donated all my late father’s books on the subject (including Baron Burkhard von Mullenheim-Rechberg’s definitive account) to the charity shop recently! Kennedy’s father was captain of the Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Rawalpindi, which took on the Scharnhorst in a suicidal mission in Nov. 1939, but prevented both that battleship and the Gneisenau from breaking out into the Atlantic, as their cover was blown. Ludo himself joined the Navy, and was a member of the crew of HMS Tartar, which was tailing the Bismarck after the sinking of the Hood, in May 1941. My father’s best friend, who joined the Navy at the same time as he did, went down with the Hood, aged only 21 years, along with almost 1500 of her crew (there were only three survivors). Funnily enough, again, my father had only just left HMS Ark Royal at the time, which he was on from its commissioning in 1938, and it was a torpedo from one of her Swordfish that disabled the Bismarck, thus bringing about her demise. Isn’t war totally barbaric? And, on a lighter note, isn’t this a most educational site? Ludovic Kennedy was a giant among men!!
October 21st, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Shit! How do we edit on this site now?!!!!!!!!!!!
October 21st, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I read “All in the Mind” when it was first published, thouroughly recommended.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Regarding questions about the comments system – we have deactivated Intense Debate because it was Intensely Irritating. Comments would disappear, regular commenters needed to be repeatedly approved, replies to specific comments would get hidden by default.
So we have returned to a “bare bones” system, with an Ajax editor on top which gives you the ability to edit for up to 5 minutes after posting. If you wish to reply to a particular comment, please use the @name convention.
When we deactivated Intense Debate, around 50 unpublished comments were discovered in the database, dating back months. Sorry if one of your comments did not appear when it should have.
Sorry too if you liked Intense Debate. You wouldn’t if you had to administer it!
October 21st, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Thanks, Dave…
As I’ve said on a few posts before — at least it’s not as bad as Pharyngula…the question is, though, why are all these centralised commenting systems so shit?
Anyway, my apoplexy over the comments clouded my judgements earlier on. What I really wanted to articulate was that Ludo — to me — really was the embodiment of compasssion: he didn’t need to follow the path that he did for reasons of self-aggrandisement (being landed gentry, and all that) — he did it regardless. His stances on euthanasia and capital punishment are the same as mine — but no way would I ever have had the guts, verve, nous…dare I say it?… conviction… to follow it through like he did.
His inability to pronounce ‘Auschwitz’ properly really used to piss me off, though.