Author Archives: The Voice

There’s an in-depth feature on Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg in today’s Mail – well worth reading in full, but here’s some selected highlights:

On leadership:

His deputy and Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable is acknowledged to have been the wisest head in last year’s economic storm, but it’s a tribute to Clegg’s growing gravitas that people have mostly stopped saying the party chose the wrong man. He was strong during the expenses scandal, calling for a total reform of the system and positioning the Lib Dems as the party for people fed up with politicians.

On MPs’ expenses:

Clegg has also been lucky that his MPs have, on the whole, behaved themselves over expenses, being more likely to claim for a trouser press than a duck house. His own claims fall within the rules, but they still make me wonder: why on earth should we pay for his gardener, or to have his floors sanded?

‘As it happens, the property was not in a habitable state when I bought it,’ he says, insistently. ‘This is a semi-detached pebble-dashed property in a suburban part of Sheffield; it’s not glamorous. The garden was a total eyesore. I didn’t put duck ponds in or helipads. If I don’t keep it tidy, that’s a pain for the neighbours.

‘My attitude is that my second home isn’t mine. It’s the taxpayer’s home, on loan to me. I keep it in good nick and when I sell it, all the gain, pound for pound, goes back to the taxpayer.’

It appears that the Lib Dems have been far less imaginative with their expenses than their rivals. Labour and Conservative MPs have had a different approach, he says.

‘To my knowledge so far, not a single Liberal Democrat MP has received phantom mortgages or turned themselves from public servants into spivvy property speculators. Not a single one has avoided capital gains tax in a big way. If you are an MP for one of the big old parties and you know you could put a blue or a red rosette on a pig in your constituency and it would win, and you could ignore people, I think the rot sets in.

‘If you know that you can’t take any voters for granted, and you might not get re-elected, it’s human nature: you’ll keep a tight ship, you’ll keep your nose clean, you’ll work hard. We’ve never been arrogant enough to assume that we can take any seats for granted.’

On calling for the Speaker’s resignation:

Calling for the Speaker’s head was his most dramatic moment, but in today’s remarkably frank mood, Clegg is willing to admit that he didn’t really know what he was doing. ‘I really rather like Michael Martin as a man,’ he says. ‘It was just so obvious to me that given the public outcry about what was going on in Westminster, we needed a different Speaker to champion reform.’ He didn’t know that no party leader had told the Speaker to go since 1695.

‘I knew it wasn’t done,’ he says with a grin, ‘but I probably hadn’t quite twigged there was this unwritten rule that you can’t say things like that.’ He doesn’t regret it. ‘The leader of the Liberal Democrats should be prepared to break a few unwritten rules.’

On the fringe parties: