Nick Clegg interview: The man insulting the men he hopes to woo in a few days' time
Lib Dem leader is hungry for five more years as Deputy Prime Minister but not at any cost and a return to the backbenches would not be a disaster
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Your support makes all the difference.Nick Clegg is not afraid of offending David Cameron or Ed Miliband, despite the fact that within days he will be trying to woo at least one of them in a bid to form another coalition.
He tells The Independent that Ed Miliband lacks the “grip and seriousness” needed to govern while accusing David Cameron of telling a “big, fat fib” by claiming the Tories could still win a majority and mocking him for forgetting which football team he supports.
But by insulting his fellow party leaders, Mr Clegg only confirms and conforms to his own description of the “Westminster village” as “the place where the lack of civility and rudeness is at its greatest”.
Dismissing as “ridiculous” a question about how he has coped with the abuse that accompanied his U-turn on pledging to scrap tuition fees – trebling them instead – and the plummet in his personal and his party’s approval ratings, he insists “people are incredibly friendly” to him and “thankfully much more grown up than the Westminster village”.
But perhaps this perception of a friendly and welcoming British public is clouded by the fact that the vast majority of his visits around the country are to meetings of Lib Dem activists and supporters.
Following Mr Clegg on his whistle-stop tour of four Lib Dem-held seats in south London, the crowds of yellow-clad supporters certainly welcomed him with open arms, with Vince Cable’s Twickenham Lib Dem party singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” as he walked off the bus, trying to hide his blushes.
But on more than four occasions there were signs of the abuse Mr Clegg is apparently oblivious to.
A middle-aged cyclist rode past shouting “traitor” in Twickenham, drawing boos from the yellow Lib Dem activists; a woman shouted “w*****” as she drove past in Carshalton and two teenage boys shouted similar obscenities in Kingston.
The final dash
The Lib Dem leader is certainly making the most of getting out of the “Westminster bubble,” spending the last two days of the campaign in a 1,000 mile “dash” driving from Land's End to John o'Groats.
It will be anything but a dash and – with David Cameron and Ed Miliband making similar last-minute marathons across the UK, will leave little energy left for coalition negotiations after Thursday's vote.
Perhaps that is why Mr Clegg is trying to make it as easy as possible to come to a conclusive coalition agreement as soon as possible. He sets out in clear terms who he will and will not do a deal with. “No, there’s no pact, no deals, no arrangements with the SNP or Ukip – full-stop,” he says.
And he has set out his six red lines – on education spending, tax cuts for the lower paid, £8 billion for the NHS, protecting the environment, pay rises for public sector staff and a “stability” budget within 50 days of a new government.
The route back to government
He is also very clear who he will give first dibs on trying to win the keys to Number 10.
“If no one wins an overall majority – and they won’t, whatever David Cameron and Ed Miliband claim to the contrary – then I think it’s only to be expected that the party with the biggest mandate – in other words the party with the most votes, most seats, even if they haven’t got a slam-dunk majority, have the right to make the first move – the ball is in their court – that’s what people expect. Democratic principle dictates that they’ve got the right to make the first move.
“They may then decide they don’t want to do anything with that mandate –they don’t want to assemble a government, they don’t want to reach out to other parties or if they do, it’s not reciprocated and then other arrangements would have to be arrived at, which might involve other parties.
“I think that’s quite important that that’s the chronology, I think British voters wouldn’t understand why, whatever their political persuasions, the party with the biggest mandate hasn’t had a chance to try and put together a government first.”
A return to the backbenches?
Even if the Lib Dems are offered another five years at the table of government, Mr Clegg’s party may block it.
The main say is taken by whichever of the party’s MPs manage to survive the beyond polling day, but senior party officials from around the country will be given a vote on the deal at a special conference, which the leadership would be foolish to block.
Indeed it is the collective decision to enter into coalition in 2010 that Mr Clegg believes was central to the “resilience” of a party that survived the past five years in government when many predicted implosion.
Mr Clegg insists he is not hostage to the trappings of power after serving five years as Deputy Prime Minister and says he could stomach a return to the backbenches, where he would have a far less influential role than the last five years and even less influence than before 2010, due to the expected loss of at least half of his MPs, let alone the sharp drop in salary and the almost certain likelihood of the Lib Dems dropping to the UK’s fourth largest party, behind the SNP.
The Liberal Democrat presence in the House of Commons is more important than its presence in government, Mr Clegg says, but it is hard to see him or his party wanting him to remain as leader if the party is no longer part of some kind of government deal.
“I think it’s better for the country to have more Liberal Democrat MPs in parliament than to have Liberal Democrats anchoring the government of the day in a sensible centre-ground way in the next parliament.”
A change of job?
But if his party does get another seat at the Cabinet table, would Mr Clegg not fancy a different role, one where he could build a legacy in a particular area as head of department, perhaps? No, he replies, because he needs to keep a watch on “loopy” ideas being pushed from the senior party of the coalition.
“I’ve learnt over the last five years that if you want a coalition to work in a balanced way, we’ve had to really strain every sinew to exercise moderation on some of the unfair and at times downright loopy ideas the Tories were pushing.
“You can’t do that if you’re constantly neck-high in paperwork in a Whitehall department, I think it’s much easier to do that if you’re hands are free to cross the thump the table across Whitehall when you want.”
The same need to avoid the nitty-gritty detail is behind his decision not to be part of the Lib Dem’s negotiation team for coalition talks. “I don’t think a leader of any party is there to cross every t and dot every I,” he explains.
“The party leaders need to be free their minds of the detail in order to “make the big judgements” about the priorities for the country, leaving the “detailed stuff” to be “thrashed out by the others”. “That’s a sensible division of labour,” he added.
Peanut butter
If things turn out badly for Mr Clegg and he finds himself and his party banished back to the backbenches and, worst still, if he lost his Sheffield Hallam seat, does he see any conciliation to a return to civilian life?
Yes – being able to pop down to the local shop to “buy a pot of peanut butter without being accompanied by security detail”.
But otherwise, Mr Clegg and his wife Miriam have tried to keep life “as normal as possible,” rejecting a move to an “armoured apartment behind the battlements of Whitehall” – therefore inside his dreaded “Westminster village” – opting to remain in their £1.5 million house in Putney, south west London and sending their three sons to the same school.
Advice from the wife?
His wife Miriam, a lawyer, is known for her forthright views and surely has an opinion on which party her husband should favour? She does, but he will not reveal which way she sways.
“She’s also very mindful of the fact that she’s not elected; she has her views which she shares with me, which will remain private, but in the same way that I would never dare to tell Miriam how to run a legal case, I think we’re very respectful of what we do in our respectful lives."
Luckily for Mr Clegg it looks like he will have to wait a little longer to be able to pop down to his local shop to buy that pot of peanut butter – a poll has just shown the Lib Dem leader with a comfortable lead in his constituency of Sheffield Hallam, calming fears he was about to lose his 15,000 majority.
Cameron, Miliband or the backbenches?
So, assuming he wins his seat, the outcomes Mr Clegg faces are Ed Miliband, David Cameron or a return to opposition.
He is not complimentary about either of them. He mocks Mr Miliband over his decision to erect an 8ft stone monument to Labour’s manifesto in the Downing Street garden, branding it as the “great Milistone around his neck” that reveals the “lack of grip and seriousness” in the Labour leader’s team.
Asked who he would rather have a drink with – Mr Miliband or Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor – Mr Clegg says he would prefer to sit on his own in the pub. Will he be sitting down with Mr Cameron to watch the FA Cup Final between their two teams – Arsenal and Aston Villa?
“It depends which team he’s supporting that day,” Mr Clegg jokes, mocking the Prime Minister for forgetting which football team he supported – mistakenly saying West Ham instead of his beloved Aston Villa, the FA Cup finalists who will take on Arsenal on May 30.
He makes fun of Mr Cameron over his fake love of football, but Mr Clegg cannot be described as the most dedicated fan either. He started supporting Arsenal four or five years ago due in part to the “endless propaganda from one of my closest aides” but mainly because of his kids. “My middle boy’s become a walking football encyclopaedia so it’s just a lovely thing to follow with them as well.”
But in an effort to show how much of a fan he has apparently become, he says Arsene Wenger is the “coolest” person he has met in his five years as Deputy Prime Minister.
Considering all they have been through together, will he and Mr Cameron stay in touch socially later in life when the pair have long-retired from politics? The thought seems to repel Mr Clegg.
“I did not go into government to look for mates,” he says, adding that his real mates are friends “so spectacularly ignorant of politics they barely know which party I lead”.
Within days he may well be leading the Liberal Democrats into another coalition government alongside one of the two men he enjoys mocking relentlessly.
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