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Nick Clegg today spoke of his aim to boost social mobility at a conference organised by the Sutton Trust, arguing Britain must create an open society “where what matters most is the person you become, not the person you were born.” “These are challenging times but that doesn’t mean we can give up on making [...]

I’ve just finished participating in a web-chat with Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, the latest in a series of #Clegginars (yes, that is the Twitter hashtag) open to all party members. Nick was in good, relaxed form (sipping water, munching Polos) — more importantly, he came across as honest, un-spun and informed about the Queen’s Speech  [ Read More ]

One of the iconic images of the early days of the Coalition — in the midst of the summer haze of the leggeron rose garden bromance — was The Economist’s front cover depicting the Prime Minister as a punk, representing the Coalition’s self-appointed claim to be one of the most radical governments in history. Economically [...]

It’s a harsh reality that ‘Nick Clegg’ has become an easy punchline for many comedians. Nick can perhaps draw some comfort from the truth universally acknowledged that it’s better to be joked about than never to be joked about at all. But he can draw greater comfort from some of the polling evidence showing him [...]

Here’s a round-up of stories we haven’t had time to cover on the site this past few days… Tim Farron: No library closed under Lib Dem leadership (LibDems.org.uk) Last year, more than 40 libraries were closed by Conservative and Labour councils. In stark contrast, for the second year in a row, no Liberal Democrat-controlled council [...]

Here’s Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg saying that the Leveson Inquiry is the best place for culture secretary Jeremy Hunt to give evidence about his role in the BSkyB takeover bid… (Available on the BBC website here.) And here’s Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes calling for an inquiry into whether Jeremy Hunt breached the [...]

In today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, a riled David Cameron appealed across the political divide to the other major conservative party in the Commons, inviting all politicians to accept they’d been guilty of cosying-up to the Murdochs’ News International empire. Nick Clegg was having none of it: Clegg mouths ‘no we didn’t’ as Cam said all politicians cosied up to News  [ Read More ]

Nick Clegg spoke this morning to the Institute of Directors, shortly after the announcement that the Office of National Statistics estimates that the economy contracted by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012 — a second quarter of shrinkage that officially means the UK is once again in recession. Here’s what he had to [...]

Nick Clegg faced Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics, and set out his views on a range of issues — including the row over some Tory MPs’ wish to ditch their Coalition Agreement pledge on Lords reform, George Osborne’s controversial budget, Cornish Lib Dems’ ‘pasty tax’-opposing leaflet, and that Michael Brown donation. Here’s the full [...]

We’re fast approaching the two-year mark of this first post-war Coalition Government, and I think it’s fair to say the strains are starting to show. It is inevitable there will be tensions when two parties — with different traditions, values, expectations — come together to try and govern a country at a time of economic [...]