Nick Clegg kept dissolving into splutters. To be fair, he was suffering from a
chest infection that had made him pale and redeyed, even without the debacle
of the past week. But the biggest splutter came when we asked the Liberal
Democrat leader whether he really had had 30 lovers, as claimed the many
headlines this week, and if not, whether he would like to offer a revised
figure.
Cough. Cough cough. An eruption of coughs. We waited.
“Every time you ask me a question,” he pointed out during a later splutter, “I
have a coughing fit. Do you think it speaks volumes? Is it a kind of
subliminal defence mechanism? It might be,” he laughed (through the coughs).
“So, a figure?” we persisted. “No, absolutely not.” If there is one thing Mr
Clegg really, really did not want to talk about, it was that
notches-on-the-bedpost interview with GQ magazine. If there was one
thing we really, really did want to talk about, it was that
notches-on-the-bedpost interview with GQ. After four months of trying
to make an impact as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, he had been
catapulted into the news suddenly – but for this? He sighed and said
quietly: “These things slightly take a life of their own.”
Just slightly: the subject of a phone-in on the Jeremy Vine Show, and
appeals from newspapers for any of the 30 to get in touch. The Lib Dem
leader even has a new nickname: Cleggover.
All of which means that during the train journey to Sheffield he wanted to
talk about the Liberal Democrat local election campaign that he was
launching there, almost everything he said reminded us of – well, Cleggover.
Such as: “The most unexpected thing [since becoming leader] is how much I
enjoy it.” (Had he enjoyed the past week, we wondered. Had his wife? But we
came to that later.)
And: “I’m very lucky to become leader at a time when politics has suddenly
come out of the deep freeze.” (And how!)
Or his promise, made to us in an interview shortly before he became leader, to
make politics more “human” and “lively”. Is this what he meant? Is Mr Clegg
a naive victim, or a canny third party leader doing what it takes to get
noticed? Was it frustrating for him that a bit of laddish banter with a
former tabloid editor had proved to be his most prominent political speech
to date?
“I just accept it. I’m fairly thick-skinned. I don’t want to be discouraged
from seeking to try and be open in the way I do my politics and answer
questions,” he said. “And that will at times have its down sides.”
Such as – how had his wife taken the news? Miriam González Durántez, a
high-powered city lawyer and glamorous Spaniard, does not look like the sort
of lady who would think that kind of openness very funny.
“I’ve said what I’ve said, I just want to leave it at that, I think,” he said,
pausing, his head hung down, suddenly very serious. “It’s always difficult
to be the husband or wife of a politician.” It hadn’t been the easiest of
weeks, then.
Our three party leaders wear three different cloaks of privacy: Gordon Brown,
who was subjected to the same interview in GQ a few months ago, would
never dream of answering the sex question, answers the drugs question (“no”)
and frequently refers to his children in public while not allowing them to
be photographed. David Cameron refuses to answer whether he has taken drugs,
but parades his children’s home life on television. Mr Clegg also refuses to
answer the drugs question.
“What I have done or haven’t done 25 years ago, what’s that got to do with my
political function now? Do I need to explain that I threw sand over someone
in the sandpit?”
But why the distinction between not talking about any – hypothetical – drug
use in his early life, and talking about his sex life in his teens and early
20s? (He met his wife at the age of 24). He did not claim to be consistent.
“When you’re constantly asked a lot of questions . . . It’s not a science . .
. you don’t plan millisecond by millisecond what you reveal or don’t reveal.”
Where Mr Clegg fiercely draws the line is in never dragging his two sons, aged
3 and 6, into it. Of Cameron’s approach, he said: “I’m not going to be
judgmental about it . . . but it’s not something we have chosen or would
ever choose to do – I just assume he’s thought it through.
“I’m certainly very private about my children, yes. It’s not their fault their
dad’s gone into politics. Do I always get the balance right? No, I’m a human
being. Can you always insulate what people say about you from your family?
No, but can you try to? Yes, I’ll always try to.”
To his credit he had been entirely good-natured (if a tad spluttery)
throughout an uncomfortable line of questioning. Curiously, he only became
annoyed when we criticised aspects of Lib Dem policy.
But then, Mr Clegg is a crowd-pleaser: “Thank you for sitting through that,”
he smiled humbly an hour later at some University of Sheffield students who
had patiently endured his election launch speech. Watching him chat to them
in groups, you could see that he was naturally comfortable with people in a
way that the Prime Minister is not.
“Suddenly all the moorings are coming loose again,” he said. “Why? Well, first
there’s been a spectacular loss of self-confidence in new Labour,” he said.
“And my generation of politicians need to be reminded that nothing moves votes
or creates more volatility in the electorate than economic uncertainty. The
contest now is really about which opposition party can articulate a
compelling agenda for change.”
The other contest is between Mr Brown and Mr Cameron – in the event of a hung
Parliament, Mr Clegg could be picking one of them as his bedfellow. Was
either of the leading parties preparing for that?
“No – no one’s approached me at all . . . In my life I’ve only had two or
three conversations with Cameron, and they’ve been perfunctory and informal.
Same with Brown,” he said. Interesting, how little contact they have.
“I’ve always counted myself lucky I’ve never relied on politics for friendship
,– most of my friends have nothing to do with politics.”
Like any good negotiator, Mr Clegg would not reveal what his terms would be.
“I’m not going to get into shopping lists . . . I’ve never used the word
precondition.” Instead he said simply: “Our priorities would be reflected in
any government that we would be a part of.”
“This parlour game, that oh, you’re going to play eeny meeny miny mo with
British politics, because somehow you’re going to be kingmaker, it’s not
going to happen like that.”
“Surely it must have crossed your mind who you’d prefer?”
“I don’t think about either of them in those terms – if you’re asking me to
make a choice between Gordon Brown’s fatal flaw, his innate view that you
can administer a better society from an office in Whitehall, and a mix of
centralisation and technocratic arrogance, and David Cameron’s skin-deep
commitment to social justice and almost total indifference to Britain’s
place in the world, it’s a totally invidious choice to make.”
“Sounds like you can’t work with either of them.”
“No, it’s why I’m a Liberal Democrat . . . what I want to do is use our long
legacy of thinking about political reform, and hitch it to the totally
legitimate public despair about politics at the moment.”
He appointed Brian Eno, the electronica musician, to see how to emulate
American success in mobilising a youth vote via the internet, and Martin
Narey, chief executive of Barnardo’s, to chair a commission on why social
mobility has stalled despite lavish spending in the last ten years.
“No Government since the war has spent as much money as this Government has
done and it’s not going to happen again,” he said. “What is it about Britain
that means we seem to be perennially unequal?”
His instinct – with friends, and advisers, for a start – is always to turn
away from Westminster for the answers; no surprise, then, that he wants to
break up that stronghold entirely. “Westminster’s like a great beached whale,”
he said.
“You need to radically relocate the Whitehall departments. Put the Treasury in
Liverpool. The Treasury is the absolute distillation of everything that’s
wrong with the governance of this country: arrogant, top-down, trying to
micromanage things from the centre.
“It should be deliberately moved out of the centre. You need to whittle down
the central state very aggressively indeed.”
Had his recognition on the street gone up, since he had become leader? “A
bit,” he said. Was he ever mistaken for David Cameron? Splutter, splutter.
“I seem to be more compared to Alastair Campbell, which I find even more
unsettling, though equally inappropriate.”
Perhaps this difficulty in getting noticed is why the most effective Lib Dem
leaders are best known for their stunts: action man Paddy (or rather Paddy
Pantsdown) or chat show Charlie (or boozy Charlie). It may be that revealing
the details of a racy past will at least grab the attention of people who
otherwise wouldn’t – come on, admit it – have got to the end of an interview
with a Liberal Democrat leader.
As he left the train in Sheffield, a press minder warned him that he would be
wearing a microphone when chatting to the students, so no funny asides.
“You want to know the biggest thing I’ve learnt since becoming leader?” he
threw over his shoulder at us. “To keep my mouth shut.”
Not quite. And hopefully he won’t. It would be a shame not to hear more from
Nick Clegg.
From Cambridge to Westminster
— Born: January 1967 in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, third of four children. His
father, a city banker, is half Russian. His mother, a teacher, is Dutch and
spent four years of her childhood in a Japanese PoW camp
— Education: Westminster School; Cambridge (archaeology and
anthropology); University of Minnesota. Secured minor criminal conviction at
16 years for arson after setting light to a greenhouse of rare cacti while
an exchange student in Germany. Speaks five languages
— Journalism: Trainee journalist, Nation magazine, New York, 1990
— Other jobs: Political consultant GJW Government Relations 1992-93;
adviser to Sir Leon Brittan, European Commission vice-president, 1996-99;
lecturer, Sheffield University, 1999
— European politics: MEP for East Midlands, 1999-2004
— British politics: Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam since May
2005; foreign affairs spokesman 2005-06; home affairs spokesman since 2006;
elected leader of the party in December 2007
— Family: Married to Miriam González Durántez, a Spanish lawyer,
formerly at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Two children; lives in
South London
— Leadership: Pledged to face prosecution rather than sign up for an ID
card. Staged a Commons walkout after the Speaker refused to allow a debate
on Lib Dem proposals for referendum on the EU – one in five of his MPs
rebelled and three of his front bench resigned.
