Charles Kennedy has kicked-off his campaign for the Scottish elections, claiming his stance on Iraq proves the Lib Dems are in tune with the public at large.

Rejecting allegations of opportunism by opponents, Kennedy said the party's anti-war stance has "made the Liberal Democrats appear more relevant than ever in national politics".

Kennedy denied claims that he was either an appeaser or a pacifist. "We Liberal Democrats have been speaking up for the majority of the British people - with the other parties in a minority against us," he said.

"We have asked the questions which needed to be asked - the questions which the so-called official opposition failed to ask."

Addressing his party's Scottish conference, Kennedy insisted the Lib Dems will "win more votes and more seats" in May's elections to the Scottish parliament.

The claim came amid a recent bout of in-fighting between the Lib Dems and their Labour coalition partners.

Kennedy insisted that his party had delivered meaningful change sitting alongside Labour in Scottish government.

"It's made life better for the Scottish people in all kinds of ways that would simply never have been achieved by Labour if they were in power on their own," he said.

"When our opponents say: it's far too complicated to bring in free personal care for the elderly, we can say, no it's not, we've done it in Scotland."

"When they say: we're going as fast as we can to develop alternative energy schemes, we can say no you're not, we've done far more for wind power and wave power and tidal power in Scotland.

"When they say: you can only open up government a certain amount - too much freedom of information jeopardises the security of the state, we can say we've got far more freedom of information in Scotland - and it works very well.

"And when they say proportional representation doesn't work, we can say: it works in Scotland."

Kennedy also predicted that his party would capitalise on the current weakness of both Tony Blair and Iain Duncan Smith.

The Lib Dem leader said that "Tony Blair looks seriously vulnerable" for the first time in his leadership.

Iain Duncan Smith, he said, appeared to be "weaker than ever".

"I thought that I'd seen the worst kind of civil war that could possibly break out within a party when Labour was tearing itself apart in the early 1980s," he said.

"In comparison with the current Tory feuding, those Labour arguments now look like a mild disagreement."