Stephen Tall

Which TV show cheers Nick up? And which public intellectual does Vince most admire?

By | Mon 27th July 2009 - 6:00 pm

Ever wondered which TV programme helps our leader to unwind chez Clegg? Well wonder no more, for The Guardian has asked Nick and an eclectic range of others in the public eye:

Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats

Jerry Seinfeld. His stories often don’t have a point or a punchline, but they’re effortlessly witty, quirky and original.

I feel compelled to report that Margaret Beckett nominated Last of the Summer Wine. This choice alone should have been sufficient to preclude her from being elected Speaker.

Meanwhile Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable answers a range of readers’ questions in the Independent, though none of them yet have appeared online. So, unless you have a copy of your own, you’ll have to take my word for it that:

  • Vince has no aspirations to lead the party: “been there, done that”;
  • 50,000 copies of The Storm have been sold to date;
  • he’s not sure George Osborne is that nice a guy, and even less sure he knows much about economics;
  • his view on the recession is – “a fiscal stimulus is needed now, but will have to be followed by tightening to deal with the big ‘structural’ deficit in the budget”;
  • the economist Minsky is most relevant to the current financial crisis – “he provides a strong and health antidote to the efficient markets hypothesis which has dominated recent financial economics”;
  • Amartya Sen is his favourite contemporary public intellectual;
  • Chippenham may well be gained by the Lib Dems at the next election;
  • he believes (paint me surprised) that neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron would make the best, next Prime Minister: “the Lib Dems are a viable alternative to both”.
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    One Comment

    • Meandyew 28th Jul '09 - 6:58am

      Chippenham is notionally ours anyway so it would not be a gain but a hold.

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