Nick Clegg

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

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As Deputy Prime Minister, he is the most powerful Liberal since Lloyd George led a coalition government during the First World War.

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Ninety years ago the Liberals needed the support of the Conservatives in order to govern.

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This time around, of course, it's the Lib Dems doing the propping up.

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There's a life outside Westminster, too. He speaks five languages, has three young children, and worked on both the left and the right of the political spectrum before standing for election himself. He says joining the Liberal Party was a no brainer for me.

Presenter1:09

When you're a young man, you don't get a calculator out saying, When am I going to get to power? You're propelled forward by idealism.

Presenter1:17

So propelled by idealism, Nick Clegg, but not apparently sustained by it, your ideals weren't much in evidence as you patted George Osborne on the back this week after he delivered the most swingeing cuts this country has seen in living memory.

Nick Clegg1:29

Well, of course, I wasn't doing so with any sense of relish or triumphalism about what we had to announce, but we've had to, as a government, announce extraordinarily difficult and unpopular and controversial things. And I've spent every day of this process, and pretty well every minute of this process, asking myself whether there are sort of pain-free alternatives, whether we're doing the right thing, and I genuinely believe that there is no easy alternative.

Presenter2:00

Um people's beef with you, of course, is is that the Tories are doing what they say on the tin. There's George Osborne doing what everybody knew he'd do, but there are you doing something that people quite clearly did not think you would support.

Nick Clegg2:11

Yeah, I don't, of course, accept that because I don't think there's anything progressive or fair or liberal about saying, well, this is all too controversial, we're going to get other people to pay off our debts. I wish it were otherwise, of course. But I think it's very important for people like me who feel very much on the sort of progressive side of British politics to understand that simply ducking this doesn't actually make Britain better. It makes it many ways worse. In fact, in many ways, the risk is you'd end up having to take more difficult cuts in a sharper way at a later stage. And I don't think that's right.

Presenter2:43

And you have not, then, had any dark nights of the soul this week? You've not woken up and thought, What the hell am I doing and why the hell am I helping this through?

Nick Clegg2:51

Oh, I've certainly searched long and hard into my own conscience about whether I think what we're doing is for the right reasons, and I genuinely wouldn't stand by it if I didn't think it was. I'm not going to hide the fact that a lot of this is both difficult, I find it morally difficult, it's difficult for the country. I think on these issues about how do you try and do difficult things today in order to create a better tomorrow, you've got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, Am I doing this for the right reasons? Am I doing it for the right motives? And am I doing it in the best possible way that I can? And so far, yeah, I've you know, I've tried to pass that test at each step.

Presenter3:25

I don't wish to get too personal too early, but you do look very tired and you do look very worn down by it all.

Nick Clegg3:31

I don't well, I'm I'm tired, but that's a combination of work and and small small children.

Nick Clegg3:36

No, I'm not worn down by it. I think this is not a time for.

Nick Clegg3:41

This is not a time for sort of triumphalism and bunting. This is a serious time. I'm not going to sit around pretending it's a laugh a minute. It clearly isn't.

Presenter3:48

This is Desert Island Discs, of course, and there is uh plenty time for the music. I don't know if you monitor the Twitter sphere, but it has been incredibly busy this week with speculation about what you've chosen. Among the suggested choices, the first cut is the deepest and puppet on a string. I noticed neither of them are on your list, but did you find your list particularly hard to?

Nick Clegg4:04

But did you

Nick Clegg4:06

Actually, if I look a little bit tired, it's probably because I left this the selection of this list very late in the day. Stayed up till about two o'clock in the morning the other day, listening to music, and I loved it. I don't think I've sat with sort of C D's spread all round me on the on the floor listening to music for in an uninterrupted way. So I actually really, really enjoyed picking this list. It was tr it was tricky, it was unbelievably tricky to pick.

Presenter4:27

I'm not sure.

Nick Clegg4:27

Tell me about your first choice today then, Nick. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of music. But um wow, I just love it. Miriam is a great, great pianist and you know, I think I'm the luckiest man in the world to be to be married to Miriam and I always think of her when I listen to this music because she played this a lot when uh she was pregnant with our first boy, um Antonio, who's now eight years old.

Presenter4:28

Prefer

Presenter5:48

That was Idele Barrett playing Chopin's Waltz in A minor, and you said, Nick Clegg, that you remember your wife Miriam playing that during her first uh pregnancy. I'm wondering if you well, I was going to say sought her permission, I'm quite sure that's the wrong phrase, but certainly if you sought her counsel when uh you were uh offered the job of Deputy Prime Minister.

Nick Clegg6:06

Oh yeah, I mean we're um I mean

Nick Clegg6:09

We have a very, very strong but very private marriage and Miriam has, I think, an extraordinarily smart way of looking at things. So yeah, we talked about it a lot. And of course it's also asking a great deal of her. She's not only married to me, to a politician, which is bad enough, but we've got three little boys, like all small children, that takes a lot of time. And she works full-time as a lawyer. So I'm racking up a lot of debt towards Miriam in terms of how much forbearance she's showing towards me.

Presenter6:41

She is astonishingly straightforward in her dealings with the press, something that I think garners her certainly a lot of respect among women that I've encountered. She said during the election campaign itself, when asked if she would be supporting you throughout, I can't just take six weeks off my work, you know, like most people. Yes, she seems very unspun.

Nick Clegg6:56

No, yes.

Nick Clegg6:57

Yes, actually.

Nick Clegg7:00

Yeah, she's very unspong. She I mean I I you know, of course I'm not objective. I I think Miriam's one of the most authentic and true people you know I've ever met. I'm not even sure if she's aware of that gift. It's a it's a fantastic thing.

Presenter7:12

Her father spent many years in Spanish politics as a senator, so she she is able to understand politics from the inside.

Nick Clegg7:14

Yes, there's a

Nick Clegg7:18

Yeah, no, she does sometime. We talk a lot about the comparison her father, who very sadly died some years ago in a in a car crash, was an extraordinary man and he was part of that generation of Spanish politicians who created Spanish democracy.

Presenter7:29

Um so what advice then, and and what did she say to you when you discussed uh the possibility of becoming Deputy Prime Minister?

Nick Clegg7:37

I mean I think we kind of wrestled with it really and you know was it the right way? I don't think we had any illusions about the risks, both political and the impact on our family. We've been very, very kind of scrupulous at trying to shelter our family and shelter our children. We stay in the same home and not perhaps this week very much, but on other weeks I still walk the children to school and we keep them out of the public eye and so on. And I think Miriam wanted a clear sense of assurance, if you like, that we could continue to do that. And we still try and do that.

Presenter8:06

Three young children, the the eldest is eight, the youngest is eighteen. Um one year and ten.

Nick Clegg8:07

The eldest

Nick Clegg8:09

Yeah, he's uh one one year in ten months, yeah.

Presenter8:11

Um I read Miriam Say in an interview recently when she was asked about you. She said, You know, I don't really see my husband these days. I mean, it must put a terrific

Nick Clegg8:18

I saw that. I said I rang it straight afterwards. I said, What do you mean? I'll see you in a minute. Uh, we have a sort of rule we try, you know, one of us takes them to school and one of them one of us puts them to bed every night. That's what we try and do. Sometimes we fail, but we're we're pretty good at it.

Presenter8:30

But how are the percentages falling right now?

Nick Clegg8:32

Oh, right now completely on Miriam's shoulders and I've I've failed utterly. But I you know, hopefully I can balance it out a bit over time. And you know, look, i i in many ways we're very similar to young parents who both work up and down the country. You're constantly juggling it, you constantly feel slightly guilty, but you try and do your best and that that's what I think you know most young parents do these days.

Presenter8:53

A lot of young parents look at each other, of course, and say, How long is this going to go on? As Miriam giving you a time limit on this, has she said, Okay, you can have five years of your big high flying political career and then it's it's gotta stop.

Nick Clegg8:57

Yeah.

Nick Clegg8:58

That's what she said.

Nick Clegg9:04

No, she hasn't she hasn't I think she's probably sorely tempted every day to impose a sort of sell-by-date on it, but so far uh she hasn't quite declared that yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if one one day she does.

Presenter9:10

Come on.

Presenter9:14

She's a tolerant woman. Tell me about your next piece of music then. This is just one of my Oh, it's just

Nick Clegg9:18

Absolutely fantastic. Johnny Cash, Sunday morning coming down, it's just fantastic. But why I love this is because when I come from a quite a large family, four brothers and sisters, and we used to often go on sort of road trips with my parents. They used to sort of drive us across, you know, Europe through the night. And they play Johnny Cash a lot. So this this reminds me a lot when I was much, much, much younger driving through the night with my parents and my brothers and sisters.

Speaker 19:42

Well, I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head. That didn't hurt.

Speaker 19:51

And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert.

Speaker 110:01

Then I fumbled in my closet, through my clothes, and found my cleanest, dirty shirt.

Presenter10:10

That, of course, was Johnny Cash and Sunday morning coming down. Nick Clegg, you say memories there of driving through Europe with your parents on holiday. You were one of four children, born in 1967, brought up in Buckinghamshire. Your father was a banker, your mother was a teacher, and that all sounds very middle class and, you know, pretty predictable, I suppose, until we learned that you all spoke Dutch around the kitchen table. Explain that one.

Nick Clegg10:33

Yeah, I mean we have a bit of a bit of a sort of mongrel family. My mum's Dutch, my dad's half Russian, and I've now compounded that by being married to a Spaniard. We were brought up bilingual. Yeah, in fact Dutch was my first sort of language. So it was a very, yes, it was a very international kind of environment. My mum's family, very close, very big family. We'd spend all our holidays with my Dutch cousins. It's a very lively, very, very warm, loud, very loving family.

Presenter10:55

And you say, um, your mother's family particularly close. Your mother had spent time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

Nick Clegg11:00

Yes, she was born in Indonesia because her dad worked for what is now Shell in Indonesia. And so she spent the whole war as a young girl in a Japanese prisoner war camp and was close to being starved to death by the end of the war and of course saw quite horrific things. Actually, I realise now at age 43 how much she basically didn't tell us. She just sheltered she sheltered us from a lot of those harrowing, harrowing memories.

Speaker 111:20

Yeah.

Speaker 111:24

You know

Nick Clegg11:27

I think it strengthened my mum's resolve to try and create the sort of most happy, protected childhood for for myself, my two brothers and my sister. And I think she suc she succeeded. I mean, we had an extraordinarily happy child.

Presenter11:40

Calhoun. Uh

Nick Clegg11:40

And what

Presenter11:40

Well, I will ask and you might not answer, but what were some of the worst things that she went through while she was there?

Nick Clegg11:45

You know, if you're a young girl and you see people being sort of, you know, beaten to a pulp in front of you and people being sort of dragged off and shot, I can only imagine what that must be like for a child of the age of my oldest boy now. But I'm not going to try and pretend that I can do justice to the things she saw. What about your father? His background pretty exotic, too. Well, his father was a very accomplished medic and was the editor of the British Medical Journal for a long time. His mother was, my grandmother was Russian and was part of that Russian diaspora that was sort of ejected from Russia at the time of the Revolution and then moved to the Baltic States and then from the Baltic States to Germany and from Germany to London. I mean it was a generation that witnessed the revolutions and the wars of the 20th century like no other generation did. And I always think it's just quite, quite remarkable how resilient they were. And tell me about, was it Aunt Maura? Aunt Maura was, in a sense, adopted my grandmother as her daughter, but was actually my grandmother's aunt. And she was this extraordinary figure. She had relationships with H. G. Wells and Maxim Gorky and was accused of being a double agent. And it was just this. Of course, I only have very, very vague memories of her when I was small. I found her utterly terrifying and imposing. And I mean, I remember she would come and visit us and she would sort of look at me sternly and say in a thick Russian accent, which I won't try and imitate, speak up, boy, and I would sort of continue to mumble and then scuttle away. But she was this extraordinary survivor who rebuilt her life here in London and became a great figure on the sort of bohemian theatre and art scene here in London. She would hold sort of swarms. Sorry, and people would come and.

Presenter12:44

Yeah.

Presenter13:19

Yeah.

Nick Clegg13:21

Yeah.

Presenter13:22

And she would drink everybody else under the table. You say there were suspicions or rumours that she was a double agent. You surely, in your position now, must be able to get to the bottom of that.

Nick Clegg13:30

Yeah.

Presenter13:31

Yeah.

Nick Clegg13:31

Actually,

Presenter13:31

That's about

Nick Clegg13:31

But

Presenter13:32

Yeah.

Nick Clegg13:32

I think I should uh

Presenter13:33

And I'm surprised you haven't already.

Nick Clegg13:33

Yes, I do.

Nick Clegg13:35

And all the time.

Presenter13:36

I'd prefer to keep it as a complete mystery. Let's have some more music then, Mick Clegg. What are we going to hear next?

Nick Clegg13:40

Oh, Prince. I just think Prince is fantastic. It's such quirky, clever music. And I spent a year in Minneapolis as a student.

Nick Clegg13:49

And saw him there a couple of times. I just think he's brilliant.

Speaker 113:52

Black day, stormy night

Presenter13:55

Uh

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No love, no hope inside

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Don't cry, he is coming.

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Don't die without knowing

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The crow

Presenter14:20

That was Prince and the Cross memories there of your days in Minneapolis. We will talk about Minneapolis a little later, but for now I want to find out a little bit more about young Master Clegg, Chalfont St. Peter's then you were mm brought up in in Buckinghamshire.

Nick Clegg14:33

Yes, yes, and then we moved a bit later to uh to near Oxford, yeah.

Presenter14:37

Okay, I'm I'm wondering um it's quite near Checkers, so the Chelford Tower did you ever see a Prime Minister choppering in or coming through?

Nick Clegg14:43

Yeah. The streets are

Presenter14:44

Uh

Nick Clegg14:44

I don't have any memory of it. I mean, that I know it's sort of conventional for politicians to say, Oh, you know, from as when I was knee high to a grasshopper, I dreamed to be able to wa walk through the door of Downey Sh actually politics, certainly compared to many other politicians, came actually relatively late to me.

Presenter14:44

I don't have any

Presenter14:57

Worryingly

Nick Clegg14:57

The one

Presenter14:58

The worst misdemeanour I can find out about your school time is that you set fire to some cacti. Indeed, yes. Is that it?

Nick Clegg15:03

Is that it? Uh no, but I think that probably the rest of it can, you know, can cast a veil over the rest of it. Yeah, well I think we can. No, no, I look, I dunno, I just you know, I was I was in like any other um teenager, I don't I certainly

Presenter15:08

I don't think we can.

Presenter15:16

So half a metre of side around the back of the bike sheds that sort of sm

Nick Clegg15:18

At least. Look, I'm I'm not going to be sort of boastful about my teenage misdemeanours, but um I had a lot of fun when I was a teenager. I went to school in the centre of London. I mean it was quite a liberal school. So if you wanted to you could have a you know, you could have a very interesting time.

Presenter15:32

Yes, you you went to school at uh Westminster, a very reputable and and high end school. Incredibly lucky, yeah. They're they're fast and loose, those boys at Westminster, and indeed some of the girls. I mean, they know how to have fun, and a lot of them are notable for by the ages of

Nick Clegg15:35

The high-end school

Speaker 115:36

Yeah.

Presenter15:44

You know, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, being rather accelerated in their development because they're living in the centre of London, because they have access to.

Nick Clegg15:50

It was a big thing, actually. It was a big change for me because I grew up.

Nick Clegg15:54

if not a million miles away from London, at least, you know, outside London, in the kind of slightly more rural area, if you like. I remember going to to Westminster School. I never spent, you know, any time or even a night in London before then, so it was like um

Nick Clegg16:07

The scales fell from my eyes. It was sort of it was an extraordinary experience, sort of being in this. It very actually it was a very precocious, very intense atmosphere, and I found it all very um yeah, all very new.

Presenter16:09

Do it sort of free.

Presenter16:17

And those girls in the sixth form then, when you took them on dates, where would you take them?

Nick Clegg16:21

Yeah.

Nick Clegg16:23

Probably just to the local cafe for a sort of furtive silk cut and and and a glass of Diet Coke. I can't remember.

Presenter16:31

It really is the most you inhaled just a silk.

Nick Clegg16:33

I've always said I think that there are parts of uh my life that uh probably are best kept under sort of lock and key. If you go into politics, you have to accept that you become subject to constant public uh criticism, commentary and so on. And I guess what you need to ask yourself is, you know, at what point can you kind of legitimately draw a line and say, Look, w what I did when I was eleven or twelve or thirteen or fourteen or whether I threw sand in someone's eyes when I was, you know, a toddler. I mean there's got to be a you've got to be able to legitimately say, look, there's yes, there's totally reasonable scrutiny about what you do when you're an adult, and then there's kind of what you are as a youngster.

Presenter16:58

Okay.

Presenter17:06

I understand that I'm not so interested in the sand bit, but I am very interested in the fact that a very modern politician like Barack Obama is happy to write about his experiences with drugs and say. Yes, absolutely, part of my experience. And you know what it does? It helps me understand your experience as a teenager, as a parent. I wonder why in Britain we are still

Nick Clegg17:21

The one

Presenter17:23

Absolutely hidebound by those sort of rather 1950s notions of what's going to be fair.

Nick Clegg17:26

I think to be fair it's changing. I think as as politicians we are all quite rightly expected to be open and almost sort of confessional in a way that a generation ago would have been unimaginable. Do I think that everybody who g goes into politics has got to first accept that they allow their whole life to be subject to line by line scrutiny, intrusion and criticism?

Presenter17:48

Just the silk cut then. Tell me about the next track.

Nick Clegg17:51

The next one is Cesaria Evora. She's an amazing singer, and this reminds me a lot of the time when Miriam and I, before we got married, we lived in Brussels. It's actually where our first two boys were born. So it just brings incredibly happy memories back of, you know, when we were first married and at our first home, and our children were first born. It's a beautiful song.

Presenter18:14

Lanasil pondstrel.

Presenter18:26

Schmailles Montvora.

Presenter18:30

Soha she must never born to fadia move.

Presenter18:45

Caesarea Evora and Petit Pay. Um Nick Clegg, we know then that you uh studied at Westminster and you went on to Cambridge and then you took a Master's degree in Minnesota. Um was that where your political ideas began to take shape, do you think?

Nick Clegg19:00

Actually, it did have a big effect on me, and actually, it's where I really first decided kind of ideologically and philosophically that I was a liberal. And of course, one of the great difficulties with politics is that the sheer velocity of politics and the sheer velocity of decisions and responses you have to give in a sort of 24-hour media environment often means you're kind of running before you've really kind of thought through in your own conscience. And that's, you know, I've tried and strike that balance, but it just allows your whole, you know, your mind to settle a bit and really ask yourself sort of big questions about what you're doing and so on. And look, I don't want to be too sort of pompous about this, but I think I've always had to be able to do that in order to rationalise and justify to myself the things that I believe and the things that I do.

Presenter19:40

Among other things, you worked as a fact checker for the left winger Christopher Hitchens. You went to work with Leon Britton at the European Commission in Brussels. From an early point in your career, you were.

Nick Clegg19:45

Just zoom.

Presenter19:51

You were tipped for success. I mean, most young graduates just don't walk into these sort of jobs. Were you I know you were given at one point a sort of helping hand by Lord Carrington. Do you think that had anything to do with you being elevated, or do you think it was just your your sort of shining intellect and ability?

Nick Clegg20:04

No, no, no, no, of course not. Of course I was I was I was lucky, incredibly lucky, incredibly privileged to have gone to a great school and have a great educa. I mean, you know, I had I had I had luck and benefits which uh I'm acutely aware of, which is out of the reach of many other people. So no, no, no, I'm not going to pretend it's sort of just

Nick Clegg20:21

Just sort of

Presenter20:22

Without help. And so, a degree from Cambridge followed by two master's degrees. Do you clearly, or I wonder, do you believe that learning is valuable for the sake of learning? For the sake of learning. Oh, of course. Of course it is.

Nick Clegg20:32

This is not I mean

Nick Clegg20:34

Of course, there's a great utility in learning, but it has to be treasured and cherished and valued as an end in itself as well.

Presenter20:42

There'll be a lot of people taking a a sharp intake of breath right now hearing you say that, given that students of the future might well be put off by the amount of debt they're going to be saddled with given this government's grants.

Nick Clegg20:50

Because I understand that's the allegation. I don't I don't I mean I've you know wrestled with this one more than more than anything else because I had to make a you know I made a pledge which I now find I can't keep and it's not you don't do that lightly. I genuinely believe that what we will what we'll come up with in it in probably in a couple of weeks' time is a lot more progressive and fairer than what we have at the moment.

Presenter20:57

I mean I may

Presenter21:10

Have you ever been in debt?

Nick Clegg21:12

I have a bit, but not but not not you know, not on and not in the way and in my whole generation, of course, was able to go to university and not face that, you know, the the kind of prospect of paying things off.

Presenter21:22

Time for some more music then, Nick Cleck. What are we going to hear?

Nick Clegg21:24

Radiohead. What a great, great band. I've got I've got no great sort of story attached to this other than the fact that I think a lot of people in my I'm forty three, a lot of people of my generation will have a have a Radiohead song on on their list. And this is just a this is one of many great songs.

Presenter21:39

Most of thousands

Presenter21:43

All bend down on me, I can feel it The hands touching me Oh this thing's a two-position Oh this thing's a one day swallow

Presenter22:03

That was Radiohead and Street Spirit. So, Nick Clegg, your career trajectory is nothing short of remarkable. Elected an MP in two thousand and five. Two years later you're the party leader. Then it's on to deputy prime minister. Meteoric rise doesn't even begin to cover it. Are you a man of ruthless ambition?

Nick Clegg22:22

I don't think i i mean i think it's as much by accident as by design uh you you you know i entered into parliament uh at a time when

Nick Clegg22:32

You know, the Liberal Democrats were in, there was quite a lot of internal turmoil. I wasn't sort of straining at the bits at all. I mean, there were just.

Nick Clegg22:40

There were just events around which kind of, you know, led to the outcome that they did.

Presenter22:44

And what about the leadership debates then? April the fifteenth it was, as the lights went down in that I T V studio after the first debate, did you know that you'd pulled the rabbit out the hat?

Nick Clegg22:54

Not at all. I hadn't hadn't got the slightest idea. I I really, really didn't. I remember ringing my mum o on'cause I got in the car, I literally just got straight into a car and then went back to the hotel and I was alone in the car and just sort of ran my mom and said, Yeah, yeah, you've done really well. Well done It really didn't um

Nick Clegg23:11

You've got to remember from my point of view, you know, I was constantly reading the papers that Gordon Brown and David Cameron had all these consultants over from America. You know, we were doing this on a shoestring. I mean, David Laws was pretending to be David Cameron, and Chris Hume was pretending to be Gordon Brown. We were sort of practice in sort of small rooms in Westminster. So it was all, in a sense, a lot more by hook or by crook than people, I think, imagine.

Speaker 123:11

You gotta remember.

Presenter23:34

And so the next morning when you saw the headlines you must have been absolutely chuffed.

Nick Clegg23:38

Yeah, of course I was. I mean I mean, I think there was a very exhilarating feeling after that first debate that you just felt that a lot of people in the country who felt they didn't have more of a choice than just two parties suddenly realized they had more

Presenter23:52

Of a choice. When it came to the negotiations over the coalition government, then obviously an incredibly busy whirlwind for you for quite a few days, but you didn't really know David Cameron very well at all. At what point did you think? Right now I understand you. I've spent enough time with you. I get it.

Nick Clegg24:02

Yeah.

Nick Clegg24:08

I think relatively quickly I sort of felt that there was something sincere going on. There was a genuine view that we both shared that no one had won the election. We were all losers. I sometimes think people have forgotten that. No one won the election. And I think we both saw that quite clearly quite early on and both saw that what we had to do at this stage was try and provide a sense of stable, strong government for the country. But I mean, look, we didn't know each other. I even texted a friend of mine who I knew knew him a bit. And I said to him, I just sent a single line text, can I trust this guy? I mean, because that's very important. You need to know that you can deal with each other.

Nick Clegg24:46

With a sense of trust.

Presenter24:47

I'm presuming the answer was yes.

Nick Clegg24:49

Yep, that's what he said. And you know, I think much as we might battle out our disagreements behind closed doors, I think we've continued to work in a in a spirit of kind of mutual respect.

Presenter24:58

Can you give me a sort of snapshot of what those negotiations were like? Was there a moment when you sat alone with David Cameron and eyeballed each other?

Nick Clegg25:06

There was a moment when the negotiations were not going in the wrong direction. We couldn't agree on a range of issues that we said, look, this is not going to work, so let's just do what they call the Westminster jargon, confidence of suppliers. Basically, you have a minority government, and then we would sort of say, well, we'll support them on this and not on that. And there was a moment, it was a telephone call, that's the least way I remember it, where I think just both of us said pretty well at the same time, that's just not good enough. It's just it won't last, it'll be unstable, the country won't like it, we won't be able to do the difficult things, we've got to go further. That was a very crucial

Nick Clegg25:38

moment that I thought, no, we've got to take a bigger, even bigger risk, because it's a hugely risky thing to do, of course, politically, particularly, bluntly, for the for the party that is smaller.

Presenter25:43

We've got it politically.

Presenter25:48

Yeah.

Nick Clegg25:48

And given that it's such a risk, what did you feel as you put the phone down from that conversation?

Nick Clegg25:52

I just felt it was a bit like what we were saying earlier. I just felt I had thought it all through and there were no other easy options.

Presenter25:59

Uh do you worry about selling out your party? Do you do you ever think you know? I made the decision, but with hindsight it might have been smarter to make a different one.

Nick Clegg26:08

No, I don't think of that any at any moment at all. I think actually if you look at the I understand everything is obscured at the moment by the by the perfectly understandable controversy about where the savings are being made. What I hope is that over time people will see that the picture that is emerging from what this government is doing is a good progressive one.

Presenter26:25

Let's have some more music then, Nick. What are we going to hear now?

Nick Clegg26:27

David Bowie. What a genius. You can almost feel, you know, not least in this great song, Life on Mars, that he's he's not just playing it, he's also kind of in every instrument. He's across every instrument.

Presenter26:38

The freaky shall ho

Presenter26:42

Uh

Speaker 226:42

Take a look at all them

Presenter26:46

Nothing wrong.

Speaker 226:47

Oh man, wonder if you'll never know.

Speaker 126:53

Who's on the best of the show?

Speaker 126:57

Is there life on Mars?

Presenter27:06

That was David Bowie and Life on Mars. I wonder, Nick Clegg, in this period, this incredible period of activity in your life, you've also managed to father three children. You know, it takes a lot of time to be a father to three children. And there was a moment.

Speaker 127:15

Yeah.

Speaker 127:17

Uh

Nick Clegg27:17

And there was

Presenter27:19

I think it was the moment when you were first elected an MP. It was the birth of your second child, which was particularly dramatic.

Nick Clegg27:24

Oh, we had it. No, yes, we had a horrible year. It was a horrible year when Antonio, our oldest, he had pneumonia and then it went into pleurisy and it was misdiagnosed. Anyway, it's all too horrific to go into. And he had to have sort of emergency surgery and ended up in intensive care. And it was just horrible. I mean, watching a two-year-old helplessly sort of pumped full of antibiotics one day after the next, it doesn't make any difference, it's bad enough. And then a few months later, yes, Miriam gave birth to Alberto and that went horribly wrong and Miriam ended up in intensive care and they were worried that she was in a very perilous position. Yeah, and then a few months, well, yeah, a few months later I then went and stood for election. So we had one of those, it was a nightmare, it was just one of those years of enormous convulsions.

Presenter27:41

Clarin

Speaker 127:41

Nope.

Presenter28:13

A political life demands so much of the individuals who commit to it. At that time, when you were going through such a period of intense family drama from one child to the next, your wife being in in intensive care after the birth of your second child, did you ever think?

Presenter28:28

It's not the right time for me.

Nick Clegg28:29

Yes, I did. Yes, a lot. A lot. I'm sure. Same as everybody. I sometimes think, gosh.

Nick Clegg28:35

You know, wouldn't it be better to do this when the children were grown up? Because you always want to spend more time with with the children. Again, I think a lot of people think the same in their own working lives, if they've got the balance right.

Presenter28:44

Yeah, but those those minutes of drama are different. I think if you if you have a a wife and children who are ill and in hospital, that's different than just the daily.

Nick Clegg28:46

Yeah.

Nick Clegg28:49

Cool. That's different from just the daily. What I did then is what I would do now, is I just took a whole lot of time off. I just spent you know, I remember you know s sleeping night after night in in the hospital with Antonio and uh you know taking taking the time off to make sure that they were healthy and strong. And I would I would hope I would do exactly the same now.

Presenter28:55

Yeah.

Nick Clegg29:07

I really am a father before I am a politician. I'm completely besotted with my little boys. They just mean everything to me, so.

Presenter29:12

And you were completely besotted with Miriam when you met her. It was love at first sight, I understand.

Nick Clegg29:15

Yeah.

Nick Clegg29:17

It was a real thunderbolt. Yes, I've been um. I mean she has a

Presenter29:19

I mean she has a

Nick Clegg29:20

Cracking looking woman.

Presenter29:22

Oh, that was a good idea.

Nick Clegg29:23

She's very, very beautiful. I just think, and I said before, I just think Miriam is just so authentic and so true and just so direct. And I've never met anyone before, never met anyone since who's anything like her. But we certainly had a linguistic tussle in the sense that Eichel spoke no Spanish and her English, she'll help me hate me saying this, but it was almost entirely incomprehensible. So we first few weeks was in sort of halting French. I didn't really understand a word she said for the first few weeks, but I just didn't matter. I just thought it was brilliant.

Nick Clegg29:51

Let's have some music. I should apologize for this to everybody listening. This is actually a track I really find quite annoying, but I would love to have it on my desert island because it reminds me so much, particularly of my youngest little one and a half-year-old. It's Waka Waka. Shakira is the theme due to the World Cup, and uh he has worked out with his little fingers how to press the icons on Miriam's iPad to be able to get the money. This is your youngest. My youngest. He's one year into ten months, and he is obsessed. He'll wake up in the morning and look at you with this.

Presenter30:11

Does this use young

Nick Clegg30:18

Absolutely excited expressions say whacka whacker. So I listen to this dozens of times every day. Lucky you.

Speaker 230:24

You know it's serious, we're getting closer, this isn't over. The pressure's on, you feel it. But you got it all believe it. When you fold it up, oh oh and if you fold it up, eh eh, Zami nami na san karegwa, cause this is Africa. Tami namina, eh eh, waka waka, eh eh. Sami nami na san karegwa. This time for Africa.

Presenter30:52

That was Shikira and Waka Waka, the theme to the twenty ten World Cup. So I wonder, Nick Clegg, if in the past few months, amidst the roller coaster, you ever sort of wake up in the morning and pinch yourself and think, God, this actually really is happening?

Nick Clegg31:03

I haven't really had the time to do that, but at the moment I thought, wow, this is.

Nick Clegg31:10

This is not quite what I expected. Is actually quite relatively recently, I went to the United Nations.

Nick Clegg31:18

And yeah, and standing at this kind of platform in the United Nations was a

Nick Clegg31:23

Extraordinary feeling. I certainly couldn't have predicted a few months ago that that would have happened.

Presenter31:27

Tony Blair said he drank a lot more as a result of being in high office. Do you find yourself reaching for the whisky bottle or a nice uh a nice uh barolo at the end of the day?

Nick Clegg31:35

No, I no, I d I actually drink very little, very little indeed.

Nick Clegg31:38

Doing next to nothing.

Nick Clegg31:41

Oh, my well, it's my children. I mean, you know, I'm like any young parent. You the wonderful thing with little children is that they don't care who, you know, what I do, what my job is. Uh all they want to know is that I can put wacko wacka onto the iPad, that I can help my middle son with his latest game Mario Bros on his DS, and my oldest boy that I can go and take him to his football game on on Sundays. And so that has a wonderful kind of sort of, if you like, liberating effect because they they're they're totally intolerant of these political preoccupations and and so I just relish every second of being a father.

Presenter32:11

And what about your parents? Interesting that your mother was sort of pretty low key about her endorsement of your performance during the the leadership debates. What does she make of your performance now on the front bench?

Nick Clegg32:22

Uh

Presenter32:23

I think she's very I think

Nick Clegg32:23

She's, you know, proud, but I think she's like any mum. She's anxious, you know, which mum would like to see their son or daughter, you know, being accused of this, that, the other. So, you know, I think like any like any pet parents, they will

Nick Clegg32:34

They'll worry, but I think they're very, very supportive. I'm very, very lucky. I've got a big family and a close circle of friends who've got nothing to do with politics who are very supportive.

Presenter32:42

A life on a desert island, then, Clegg. You'll be there, you'll be all alone. Um you spent a lot of time sort of out playing for hours on end in the woods of Buckinghamshire when you were a child. Are you very practical? Could you lash up a shelter?

Nick Clegg32:43

Being

Presenter32:53

Barbecue some fish, do all that sort of stuff.

Nick Clegg32:55

I think I could probably try. I could probably try. Will Miriam be laughing right now? Yes, exactly. That's why I'm saying it somewhat sheepishly. She will find it a completely preposterous suggestion that I would even know how to.

Presenter33:00

Yeah.

Nick Clegg33:06

Make my own food.

Presenter33:07

Just checking. Tell me about your final piece of music then.

Nick Clegg33:09

This is an impromptu from Schubert. I'm not, I don't think, particularly musical. Miriam is, thankfully. My children are, my brother and my dad are. And my father used to play this a lot when I was younger. It's just the most extraordinary piece of music. I just find it as moving now as I did when I first heard it.

Presenter34:24

That was Schubert's impromptu number three in G flat, played by Alfred Brendel. So have we come to the point then, Nick Cleck, where I'm going to give you the books? Crunch time. Yes, Crunch Time. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and you can take one of your own books. What will it be?

Nick Clegg34:37

Uh

Nick Clegg34:38

The Leopard by Giuseppe de Lampedusa. I'm not sure that's the right pronunciation. It's just the most amazing book of sort of decay and change. I think it's set in Sicily. And I read it again the other day. And it's one of the few books when I read it a second time that I liked it even more than the first time. So I'm assuming my desert island. If I read it a third and a fourth and a fifth time, it'll get better and better. It's yours and a luxury.

Nick Clegg35:00

Well I have a confession to make which is that I do like the occasional cigarette so I wouldn't mind just having a a stash of cigarettes. I can just imagine as the sun's going down and I've got the beard you know flowing down to my knees and I'm thinking about what on earth am I going to do to while away the time, just puffing away the cigarette would be quite nice. I know I'm not supposed to say this'cause it's all but it's a terrible thing and I hope my children don't hear this programme because they don't even know that I smoke but I do like the occasional cigarette.

Presenter35:25

I'll even give you some matches to go with the cigarettes. And if you had to choose just one of these discs, which one disc would you choose to save?

Nick Clegg35:27

Internet.

Nick Clegg35:32

I think actually it would be the last one, the the the Schubert impromptu, um and I just think it's very, very beautiful.

Presenter35:39

Nick Clagg, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Presenter36:28

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.