There are some interesting nuggets in Andrew Rawnsley’s interview with Nick Clegg in this morning’s Observer. Rawnsley himself picks out Clegg’s comments on the AV referendum for his own column – David Cameron and George Osborne panicked that a Yes vote would cause trouble with the Tory right and so decided to “throw the kitchen sink” at keeping the current electoral system – but some of the softer, more human, stuff is likely to get greater pick-up.
As we discovered with Jemima Khan’s recent interview with the Deputy PM, it’s the personal, not the political, that intrigues – “Why are the students angry with you, Papa?” and “he cries regularly to music” compelled in a way that Clegg’s views on the Arab spring did not.
In the same vein, take this exchange on Clegg’s well-known smoking habit:
Is he still smoking? “A little bit.” That sounds like the sort of fib people tell to their doctors or partners. How much is a little bit? “Not much. No, not much. Three. Maybe three. Sometimes four. I never have smoked that much. I smoke only in the evenings, out of sight, when the children are asleep.”
They don’t know he smokes?
“No, no. So please don’t tell them.”
You hide in the garden?
“Yes, I hide in the garden. No, hide is the wrong verb. I cower. I cower.”
Miriam gives him a hard time about his habit. Has he tried to quit? “Not much. Not right now.” He pulls a face which begs for mercy. “Can I please have one little private sin which I can keep to myself?”
As Rawnsley notes, a “less open and more artful politician would have not allowed himself to be drawn into conversation about his smoking”. This candidness – the anti-politician – was part of the Clegg charm that worked so well a year ago.
That it works less well 12 months on is, of course, more to do with what voters perceive as his broken promises. The central motif for this has been the picture of Clegg holding a large “No to tuition fees increase” pledge card. But perhaps this party political broadcast, from 13 April 2010, sums up the sense of betrayal best, featuring as it does a high-minded Clegg declaring “an end to broken promises and the beginning of a new hope”.
If you want to know how Lib Dem HQ feels about this broadcast, try to embed the official version on to your own blog. You can’t. “Embedding disabled by request,” YouTube tells us.
No prizes for guessing why.
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