First up on this morning’s Call Clegg was, unsurprisingly, Ukraine. After discussing the situation generally Clegg was asked why he thought financial support for the country was a good idea. His response was clear:

It is in our interests to have a stable rather than unstable Ukraine.  It is in our interests to have a prosperous rather than an impoverished Ukraine.  Because if Ukraine is in a sense brought to its knees economically and socially never mind what the military incursions are from Russia, we’ll end up frankly paying a much higher cost in the years to come.

Next up he repeated his criticism of Nigel Farage and other UKIP MEPs, who he accuses of failing British interests in their apathy towards involvement in making EU legislation:

…when Nigel Farage, and his fellow UKIP MPs have the opportunity, for instance, to vote to bring down the cost of our mobile phone calls, did they do it?  No, they voted against it.  When they had the opportunity to vote for an Extradition Treaty, which keeps us safe, which for instance has helped extradite one of the failed London bombers who threatened to kill and name many people, did they do it?  No, they voted against it.  When they had the opportunity to vote for a trade deal with the United States, with our partners in the United States, nothing to more European stuff, actually more kind of transatlantic stuff that you thought he would like, they didn’t they sat on their hands.

He was also pressed by Nick Ferrari to respond to Nigel Farage’s response, when he accused Clegg of hypocrisy on the basis that he only voted in 22% of votes in the Commons. Slightly surprisingly, Clegg didn’t seem to have a particularly strong response:

Because, I’m a Deputy Prime Minister of Government, it’s not unsurprising at all, in fact this is invariably the case that senior politicians in senior positions in government, don’t vote as much as others do.  But, as I say, when I was doing Nigel Farage’s job I voted a lot more, and I certainly wouldn’t have done what he’s done, which is not lift a finger to help create British jobs by creating a free trade agreement with America.  Not lift a finger to help cut people’s mobile phone costs.  Not lift a finger to actually help go after nasty criminals by signing up to the Extradition Treaty.

For what it’s worth, it seems to me that is best response would be this: “I am sitting in my office in Whitehall, in meetings with ministers and civil servants and I am writing and amending the legislation in the first place. Farage on the other hand actively chooses not to have an influence over European legislation that would help the people of Britain”.

The next caller asked Clegg about Boris Johnson’s comments that muslim children at risk of radicalisation should be taken into care. However, Ferrari also asked about Johnson’s apparent support for higher taxes on property, prompting this from Clegg:

Well, he doesn’t call it a mansion tax but he calls it extra council tax bands for very high value properties in London, which is basically the mansion tax and by the way it’s also precisely the proposal I put to George Osborne and David Cameron a couple of years ago because it’s a fair thing to do.

Next up came an email asking about Vince Cable’s comments about teachers and career advice. Clegg was sure Vince hadn’t intended to offend:

I think he was having a wider discussion, which by the way, in my experience, my friends and people I know who are in teaching actually agree with the wider point he was making which was that we need to improve the careers advice and guidance that is given to kids in schools because, frankly, in many schools it’s not yet good enough.  That’s why I announced, for instance, last week that we’re going to be issuing shortly guidance to schools about how to provide better careers advice and guidance, including, which is very relevant to the discussion Vince was having with that particular audience, including a new responsibility on schools to work with local employers and local businesses, in order to give kids more of an opportunity.

Then came this slightly odd question from Thomas in Wigan: “What do you mean by ‘Cabinet collective responsibility,’ what does it mean to you, and do you think that you’ve been good partners in the coalition?”

After a slightly bizarre discussion in which Clegg had to defend not clearing his decision to debate Nigel Farage with David Cameron, he was able to reply to the original question as well as a suggestion that a Labour minority would be a better outcome than another coalition:

Well, I couldn’t disagree more strongly with you, and I would warn you against, how can I put it politely, the hubris of somehow suggesting that the two other Parties, if they don’t get a majority from the British people, can nonetheless somehow dictate to the rest of the country how the country will be governed.  In a democracy, if you don’t secure a majority for yourself in Parliament, you don’t have the right to simply decide that you’re going to govern the country nonetheless.  And, I think we were faced as a country, back in 2010, with an unprecedented situation, firstly an economic crisis caused largely by the Party you support, the Labour Party, and secondly an inconclusive outcome of the General Election.  What we did was novel, clearly not welcome to you, but I think was nonetheless absolutely indispensable in putting the country back on the straight and narrow, putting the country back from the economic brink, which is where Labour had left it.  And, we’re now finally seeing that the plan we started there as a coalition of rescuing, repairing and reforming the British economy is working.

Next up was immigration, where Clegg had this to say on the approach of our coalition partners to the topic, particularly their net migration target:

Well, I’ve always said to them the problem is it’s a target over which they don’t have full control because it depends partly on how many people live this country, how many Brits leave this country.  Actually, the number of Brits leaving this country is now in its lowest level than it’s been for many, many years.  So, you can’t control that, you can’t tell a number of Brits to leave this country in order to meet those targets, it would just be absurd.  That’s why it’s not a government target, but I think they’ve become very, very preoccupied with that, and I’ve always said to them there are certain things we’ve got to do, bear down on illegal immigration, bear down on abuses on the system, bear down on unscrupulous employers, reintroduce exit checks.

A question on the ritual slaughter of animals (covered here earlier) concluded this week’s Call Clegg, notwithstanding a still-jammed switchboard.

* Nick Thornsby is a day editor at Lib Dem Voice.