High Profile
Starting afresh
Interview by Simon Barrow
Eleven weeks into his new job as leader of the Liberal
Democrat Party, Nick Clegg was in a ruminative mood when Third
Way spoke to him in his office in the Palace of
Westminster.
A recent profile of you said, 'We still don't really
know who Nick Clegg is.' What more do we need to know about you to
understand who you are?
That's a tricky question. People quite rightly want to know who
you are, but a full explanation would require a degree of
confessional autobiography I'm not sure it's easy or right to
deliver, or even right to expect of people in public life. It
doesn't sit very naturally, I think, with the kind of political
culture we have in this country.
I suppose I'm like a lot of people: if you ask me what my
influences are, they are without a doubt my family. They are very
much the main driver of who I am as a person - my parents, my
brothers and sisters, my cous?ins (I come from a very big,
boisterous, warm, loving family) and my own family now. But I'm
never that keen to talk about my own family, because by definition
one is talking about private things. Not that I have any dark
secrets or anything.
May I ask you what you learnt from your
parents?
Well, I think that from a healthily early age I and my brothers
and sisters were aware that really bad things can happen. Mum had
spent four years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Indonesia
when she was very young, and my dad's mother, who was from St
Petersburg, lost all her family and then was part of that very
dislocated Russian diaspora that moved through the Baltic, through
Germany and France to London. So, by complete coincidence both
sides of my family had been particularly marked by that
extraordinary run of revolution and war and tragedy during the 20th
century.
I think, too, that my mother's classic sort of Dutchness instilled
in us a degree of scepticism about the en?trenched class
configurations in British society. Rightly or wrongly, you just
felt that the Netherlands was a much more socially mobile country,
where you weren't judged by your accent, your education or your
background as much as you are in this country. (Though, I have to
stress, I had a very, very fortunate, affluent background and went
to a private school myself.)
I was acutely aware as a youngster that, frankly, things just
seemed to work so much better in the Neth?erlands than they did in
Britain - or England, at least. There was just a feeling that
something was holding this country back, at a time when - perhaps
in part because of the devastation of the war - large parts of
Europe were palpably moving forward, politically, economically, in
terms of infrastructure...
What other influences do you think have shaped
you?
Probably the most important event to have occurred in my
generation was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I remember very
well listening to the reports on a radio in a freezing cold
basement flat in Minnesota, where I was living at the time. It was
extraordinary, a political revolution, really, which made a huge
impression on me at a key point in my own development.
The transformation of Europe after the collapse of communism and
the lifting of that terrifying threat that had hung over my
generation... I vividly remember being scared absolutely witless as
an 11-year-old by a fire-and-brimstone history teacher who informed
us reliably we would all be dead by Christmas because the Soviet
Union urgently needed access to warm-water ports for some reason
and the Red Army was going to sweep through Europe.
The end of the Cold War was also a huge moment, I think, in the
transformation of the politics that for a long time had slightly
ossified Britain. The old politics of the Seventies and much of the
Eighties was organised around a very polarised concept of left and
right -
Indeed. That's why this magazine was titled Third
Way.
- whereas we now inhabit a political universe that is much more
plural, much more diverse, much more fluid, much more - dare I say?
- ecumenical almost.
Was the collapse of apartheid also significant for
you?
Absolutely. Hugely important. But I actually think very much in
European terms. I always have done. It's very much part of who I
am, because of my Dutch mum and my half-Russian dad and all the
rest of it - and I've travelled a lot around Europe.
How do you feel about the anti-Europeanism that still
lurks in British (and perhaps especially English)
culture?
Part of the problem, I have to say, is the circumstances in
which we first entered the European Community. I think we went in
out of a sense of inevitability rather than any great sense of
enthusiasm. If you are German or French or Italian or Dutch or
Belgian, the European Community is a symbol of peace and
reconciliation after war. If you are Spanish or Portuguese or
Greek, becoming a member of the Community was a symbol of democracy
and modernity over Fascism. You ask people and those are their
explicit associations. I think we are almost unique in seeing it in
negative terms.
You have been widely quoted as saying, 'I'm a liberal by
temperament, by instinct and by upbringing.'
I'm a liberal to my fingertips.
What does that actually mean?
Well, it means lots and lots of things, but probably the core of
liberalism for me is tolerance. I mean real tolerance - a profound
antagonism to prejudice of all sorts.
There are some profoundly intolerant forces in our
society. Do we tolerate them?
Of course there are limits to tolerance, absolutely. When I say
'tolerance', I don't mean relativism. I don't mean a sort of moral
free-for-all. Far from it, actually. Liberalism - muscular
liberalism - should be, and is, very antagonistic to creeds and
ideologies that espouse an intolerant, narrow-minded approach to
things.
Personally, I think that if you live in a liberal democracy
there are certain ground rules that everyone has to respect: you
know, human rights, respect for the individual, gender equality,
democracy. If you explicitly flout or confound those values, I
think it's quite reasonable for a liberal democracy to say, 'You're
not part of our moral discussion.'
There are many different traditions that have informed the
Liberal Democrat Party. Which of them are most important to
you?
I think the tradition of the Liberal Party as a party of political
reform is a very powerful one indeed. There are many other
traditions - the tradition of internationalism in the Liberal
Party, the tradition of civil liberties and individual rights - but
I think the tradition of political reform is possibly more
important now than it ever has been before, given the bankruptcy of
British politics these days.
You are said to be more of an economic liberal than some
others in the party.
I've genuinely never quite understood the great debates - supposed
debates - between social and economic liberals. Every time I listen
to them, they seem to be saying almost precisely the same thing,
just with linguistic emphases in different places.
But isn't there a tension between them?
I think there would only be a tension if people who call
themselves economically liberal somehow either accepted or, even
worse, advocated that this led to less social justice. For me, it's
all ends and means. I want to live in a fairer society, so my
overall objective, if you like, is to live in a more socially
liberal society. I passionately believe this. I do not believe that
you can call our society liberal until we have rid it of this
terrible handicap of people being born into disadvantage in a way
that actually condemns them for life.
Frankly, I think it's a rather unideological discussion about
what you think are the best means to achieve that. For instance,
why is it that a socially progressive party, the Labour Party, with
unprecedented amounts of money and electoral power, hasn't
delivered a more socially progressive, liberal society? I think
that begs big questions, for which I think the economic liberal
tradition has got a very good answer - namely, you can't create
social justice from a bureaucrat's office in Whitehall. It's all to
do with the dispersal of power, to individuals and communities.
It's to do with diversity and pluralism.
Now, a lot of that is very germane to economic liberalism - the
idea of letting go, innovation and so on. I see economic liberalism
totally as a servant to greater social fairness.
Many religious people talk about how their faith informs
their politics. How do you think that not believing in God affects
yours?
Well, my moral frame of reference Is clearly a Judaeo-Christian
one. My ethics are not insulated at all from the world of faith and
organised religion. I think that fundamental concepts of tolerance,
of compassion, of love for your neighbour run very deep in our
culture but they are also intimately bound up with our Chris?tian
heritage. In fact, I'm very sort of proud of the fact that some of
that ethos I very much espouse. You know, many members of my family
are very religious and I have a great deal of admiration for the
strength of their faith. (I take a great interest in people's
religious faith, but I'm very non-judgemental about it. Maybe it
helps a little bit that I personally don't share it.)
As it happens, I was asked [in a quick-fire interview on BBC Radio
5 Live] whether I believed in God or not and was asked to give a
one-word answer: yes or no. I thought for a few seconds and
thought, 'Well, I don't know whether God exists, so I can't say
"yes". So, the only logical answer is "no".' But I'm not some rabid
atheist by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, I feel
almost inadequate that I don't have faith.
You're more of an agnostic.
Yes, exactly.
And then the media got over-excited and -
Blah blah blah. And I honestly don't mind that - you know, I
accept that it goes with the territory.
In some ways, politics and the media in this country are
like a strange soap opera we all get caught up in.
Yeah, I think that's true. Politicians and the media have got
themselves kind of locked in a pretty unhealthy embrace, where both
are dependent on each other but both have become extraordinarily
suspicious of and antagonistic towards each other. In every
interview, the journalist is thinking the politician is hiding some
terrible dirty secret and the politician is thinking the journalist
will stop at nothing in order to skewer him. And that creates an
idiom in our political debate of doublespeak, euphemism and
evasion. It's extremely difficult, as you say, and very
worrying.
Nowadays, British politics seems to be full of people
like you and David Cameron, who are young and media-savvy. Do you
think it will ever again be possible for someone like Clement
Attlee, say, to come to power in this country?
Oh, I've spoken to politicians who were active in the Sixties and
Seventies who told me they wouldn't have been able to do this or
that, or dress in a particular way - or their looks wouldn't have
worked, or whatever - in the much, much more intense media
environment we have now. I mean, it's a relentless 24-hour industry
which has a voracious, insatiable appetite for stories.
So, you have this slightly hyperbolic quality to press coverage,
and I think we're all struggling to deal with the fact that, while
all that is happening and we are getting wildly preoccupied with
what the top three stories are on the Today programme, vast swathes
of the country just aren't listening at all - or (and this is the
really interesting thing) are actually taking matters into their
own hands and finding things out for themselves -particularly, of
course, from the internet.
Part of the challenge for a third party in this country,
it seems to me, is that you have no prospect of winning power for a
long time to come. But once you admit that, the media will say
there's no point in voting for you.
I think you're being unduly pessimistic. Well, I would say that,
wouldn't I? But look, we got six million votes at the last election
- that's more than any other liberal party in Europe. We have more
MPs than we've had in a generation. I think it is possible - it'll
be a stretch, but it is genuinely possible - at least to double the
number of MPs we have here in Westminster. And the moment you do
that, politics changes utterly, because you've broken the stifling
grip of the two-party system. And I think it's a lot more
realisable than people think.
I suspect that every Liberal Democrat leader for years would have
said the same.
Hang on! In the 1951 general election, only 2 per cent of the
British electorate voted for a party other than the Conservatives
or Labour. In 2005, that [figure rose above 40] per cent. The 2001
general election was the first time that more people didn't vote at
all than voted for the governing party. And these things
accelerate. Once you have a political system that is so out of
whack with the people it purports to represent…
What keeps you sane when the going gets
tough?
I'm lucky, all my closest friends have nothing to do with politics
- and think I'm completely bonkers for having gone into it. I find
that their frame of reference is just completely different to the
kind of media merry-go-round that I am involved in.
How can you persuade them to take what you're doing
seriously?
With difficulty, but I'm going to try. One of the things I'm
doing, and I'm determined to carry on do?ing for as long as I am
leader of this party, is to spend as much time as I can outside the
Westminster bubble. So, one day a week I campaign outside London. I
hold town-hall meetings - we simply advertise them in the local
press: 'Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems, is in your area. You
can come and ask him anything.' And some of them have been
brilliant, absolutely packed to the gills. It's completely
unstaged, completely unorchestrated - it's very old-fashioned,
actually. People who've been completely switched off by politics
have loved the opportunity just to ask things that bother
them.
I don't pretend that it's going to change the world, but if I do
that hundreds of times in the next few years I think it might make
a difference. One thing for sure - and I say this with some feeling
as a South Yorkshire MP - is that life beyond West?minster is
entirely different to what many people in the bubble think it
is.
You have said you think the system is archaic and needs
to change. How would you go about it?
Where do you start? The whole thing needs to be up-ended.
What were your feelings when you first arrived in the
House of Commons?
Part of it was awe, of course - I mean, it's a very impressive
building, it is just so redolent of history and some of the debates
are still among the best you will hear in any parliament in the
Western world. But that awe was mixed with utter dismay that
something can be so out-of-date - a ritualistic approach to
politics that collapses into farce at Prime Minister's Questions
every Wednesday, a narrow, stale tribalism, an absolute lack of
pluralism… The two main parties, who sustain this place, jealously
guard their vested interests.
How could it be different?
Well, we could have a horseshoe chamber rather than this rather
claustrophobic antagonism of benches banked up opposite each other.
We could call each other by our names. We could schedule debates so
they didn't take place in the middle of the night. We could have
debates that people want, rather than ones that are dictated by
government whips and outdated procedure.
You come from a privileged background and I imagine you
would fit very nicely into the old regime. Are you really enough of
a rebel to 'upend' it?
Oh, I feel completely unsentimental about this place.
How far can you go in challenging it?
Well, I have said I'm prepared to go to court rather than give my
details to a compulsory government database for the ID card scheme.
I think the tradition of dissent and direct protest is very, very
important to a party that is not just not part of the system but
wants to overhaul the system completely.
In the 1970s, when I was a long-haired Young Liberal, we
were described as 'the kind of people your mother warned you
against'. Can I ask you, what did your mother warn you against? And
have you followed her advice?
This is a rather serious answer, and it would be lovely to say it
in Dutch, but that's too pretentious. She was always warning us to
take life as it comes. Like any mum, I think she was keen that her
children shouldn't suffer disappointments and thwarted
expectations.
Has that advice proved useful in your new job as leader of the
Liberal Democrats?
Oh, it's been very useful. You don't half get buffeted around a
lot, and anything you say or do is subject to constant criticism
and carping. You just have to plough on, and try to keep a bit of a
sense of humour, and a sense of perspective.
--
BIOGRAPHY
Nick Clegg was born in 1967. He was educated at Westminster
School, and read anthropology at Robinson College, Cambridge,
gaining a master's degree in 1989. He then won a scholarship to the
University of Minnesota, where he studied the
political philosophy of the 'deep greens'.
In 1990, he moved to New York to work as a trainee journalist on
The Nation.
He then spent six months in Brussels as an intern in the European
Commission, before taking a second master's degree, in European
studies, at the College of Europe in Bruges.
In 1992-93, he worked in London as a consultant for GJW Government
Relations. In 1993, his journalism won him the first Financial
Times David Thomas Prize, which took him to Hungary as a
reporter.
In 1994, he returned to Brussels to take up a post at the EC
delivering technical aid to the countries of the former Soviet
Union. Two years later, Leon Brittan, then vice-president of the EC
and its trade commissioner, offered him a job in his private office
as a policy adviser and speechwriter. At this time, he led the EC
team in negotiations on the admission of China and Russia to the
World Trade Organization.
In 1999, he successfully stood for the European Parliament as the
lead Liberal Democrat candidate for the East Midlands. He served a
term, in which he spoke on trade and industry for the Alliance of
Liberals and Democrats for Europe and also co-founded the Campaign
for Parliamentary Reform.
In 2005, he was elected MP for Sheffield Hallam with over 50 per
cent of the votes cast. He spoke for his party on Europe, and a
year later was promoted to the front bench with the brief for home
affairs.
Last December, he defeated Chris Huhne MP in the
election for the leadership of the party by 20,988 votes to
20,477.
He is a prolific author, journalist and pamphleteer, and from 2000
to 2005 wrote a fortnightly political column for Guardian
Unlimited. He has lectured at both Sheffield and Cambridge
Universities.
He has been married since 2000, to the daughter of a former
Spanish senator. They have two sons.
This interview was conducted on March 3, 2008.