The Waugh Room

Thursday 2nd February 2012 | 19:57

Nick Clegg in The House

Nick Clegg has given an interview for the latest edition of The House magazine and he's been admirably frank on a range of topics.

The DPM was markedly relaxed as Sam Macrory and I quizzed him on everything from those wayward Lords to his rowing machine (he uses it regularly but has never, ever held a sweat-dripping meeting while on it).

He gave real hints on the job he wants for David Laws (it looks like some kind of Cabinet Office, cross-government role), described how he and Chris Huhne are old friends and how he now copes with his muteness at PMQs. Oh, he also revealed how he keeps his sons off the computer and manages to always read a novel - every night.

The full interview is HERE. But here are the DPM's key quotes:

 

CLEGG on David Laws 

Asked if he would bring back David Laws in a reshuffle, outside Cabinet level if needed?

"I'm not wildly hierarchical and David certainly isn't. It's one of the many things which I like so much about David, he's a sort of an unusual combination of being a politician but actually quite a modest character, which you don't find very often in  politics. David is not after status. What I would like to see David do is to be close to the centre of power in one shape or form with ideally quite a broad view of government policy because I think he's got an ability to see the connections between policies which is quite unusual."

 

CLEGG on rebellions by Lib Dem peers

"It's not licensed. I think it’s the nature of the kind of legislation we are introducing. When you are touching things as emotive as the NHS, as what support you give to vulnerable people in society, as to what kind of aid you give to people when they want use the law to defend themselves, these go right, right to the core of what politicians care about. And in particular what Lib Dem politicians care about.  

 

"Let's be blunt: I am asking, day in day out, Liberal Democrat peers to vote on things that they wouldn’t do in a month of Sundays if it was a Liberal Democrat government. So I don’t think people should judge the Lib Dem peers too harshly. I think they should be judged on what is finally decided. So, for instance, on the health bill, I frankly am incredibly grateful that people like Shirley Williams dug her heels in on the health bill because it’s a whole lot better than it would have been otherwise. A whole lot better. As I say on this latest one this last week, I think you will find that the concern they expressed about..the transition with which, the manner with which you implement the [benefits] cap were totally legitimate concerns... I see it as much more as part of the give and take of government as a whole, particularly a coalition government, and particularly because of the menu of votes which are having to be digested during this session."

 

CLEGG on Israel and Iran 

Asked if he worries that there will be a pre-emptive strike by Israel against Iran: 

"Of course I worry that there will be a military conflict and that certain countries might seek to take matters into their own hands."That's why we have been very much at the forefront of demonstrating to the world that a) there's a big problem, Iran appears to want to illegally or illicitly arm itself with with a nuclear weapon and, secondly, that there are very tough things we can do which are not military steps in order to place pressure on Iran." 

 Asked, if the UK did go down the military route, how confident is he that his own MPs would vote for action:

"I'm not going to get into speculation at all about a) whether there would be military conflict, b) whether Britain would participate if there was and c) whether what position we would take.

"It depends entirely on what Iran's intentions are. I think of course you don't in a situation like this take any options off the table. When you are in a major stand off with a country which appears to have a sort of hostile intent on these issues, of course you don't do that. But equally we have been very very clear that we are straining every single sinew to resolve this through a combination of pressure and engagement."

 

CLEGG on Huhne 

How personally let down would you feel if he was charged, given that you have taken at face value what he told you? 

"I've no idea what the CPS is going to do. Chris has no idea. I've known Chris for how many years? ..Chris was one of the only Liberal Democrats at my wedding. Chris and I go back a long way. I keep reading that we are great rivals. Yeah, we were rivals [but] actually Chris and I know each other...I have known him as long as I've known almost anybody else in politics.

But will you be damaged too?

"I don't have a crystal ball. All I can tell you is that he has made it very clear to me privately and he's said it publicly that he denies any kind of wrongdoing. The CPS, I don't know how the CPS works, seems to be taking its time to decide what it wants to do. I just find it next to pointless speculating about a decision which hasn't been taken by an organisation which I don't frankly have much insight into. I can only tell you what I know: which is that Chris says that he didn't do anything wrong."

 

CLEGG on Lords reform 

Don't you risk getting bogged down by this when the focus should be on the economy and other issues? 

"I don’t think there’s any question of me or anyone else getting bogged down. You can do more than one thing at once in politics. For heaven’s sake, we’re a Government who in the last 18 months have entered in to armed conflict in Libya, who’ve had to endure and deal with riots on our streets in the summer, who are witnessing one of the most significant economic sort of periods of turmoil on our European doorstep, who are launching health reforms, higher education reforms, welfare reforms, legal aid reforms… The idea that a Government who can do that in 18 months can’t at the same time just finish a job to reform a second chamber, a process that started a hundred years ago...

"As it happens I care much more about the pupil premium and a fairer tax system than I do about House of Lords reform. Considerably more. I have written more books about it, I have put it on the front page of our manifesto, but I just think that there’s always an excuse not to finish a job of political reform. And when people say we are rushing, I’ve just say “How long are we going to take?” This debate has been going on for 100 years."

 

CLEGG on the Lords being 'out of touch'. 

"When people are trying to pay the bills, and are worried about their jobs, and are worried their kids going to college and all the rest of it, I don’t think the vast majority of people think about the House of Lords at all. I don’t think it impinges on their daily life at all. When it does, like it did this week [on the benefit cap], how can I put this politely? I suspect many people will think:  “I am not sure this is a chamber in real touch with my every day concerns.” "   

 

CLEGG on party funding  

"I hope to make an announcement soon because I said at the time of Christopher Kelly's report was announced that whilst I think it's obvious that no one can advocate an increase in state funding at this time for parties - that bit of his jigsaw I just don't think is susceptible to any progress now - there has to be some kind of progress. It's an untenable position so I am working at the moment to see what kind of issues could be the subject of cross party discussions to make some progress son this. But I'm certainly not backing off from it, I just think the system stinks and it's going to blow up in our face as a political class again and we've got to try and do something about it, even if we can't do it the whole way that Christopher Kelly and his colleagues recommended".

 

CLEGG on married couples tax breaks 

Put to him that No.10 sources pointed out recently that plans for married tax cuts were 'absolutely safe and unchanged': 

"I think the Coalition Agreement is very clear that the precedence on tax cuts is the [personal] allowance and we haven't come anywhere near to delivering what we set out we would do. So there's a very clear chronology to which tax cuts are most important. The Coalition Agreement says the priority is another tax cut [than married couples]."

 

CLEGG on plans to end the Coalition early Asked about a plan backed by some Lib Dems to pull ministers out of the Coalition six months before the 2015 election, while supporting the Government in votes: "I don't think we should play silly buggers with the country. Wev'e said that we are going to govern for five years. We should govern for five years. I think endless faffing about that we might do in this or that month, I think it would be completely lost on people."  

 

CLEGG on PMQs  

“You would not believe the contradictory advice that I get. ‘You should sit here, you should sit there. You should look up to the right, you should look to the left’..I have given up trying to work out what people expect me to do. So if I smile, some people say: ‘You shouldn’t smile - you look as if you’re enjoying yourself.’ If I grimace they say ‘You look terribly sad and unhappy.’ So then I try and sort of not smile, but smile. So I have basically decided to ignore all the advice and just sit and listen. It’s only half an hour a week.” 

"You should never look, I think, at the way coalition parties relate to each other, or indeed how the two kind of party leaders are seen alongside each other in a snap shot way. I think we are quite relaxed in government that we have our differences – sometimes they are played out in private, sometimes they are played out in public - but I personally think the country is quite relaxed about it as well. They kind of get that just because we sit, in answer to your question, we sit next to each other in the House of Commons on the Government benches does not mean that we are, you know, identical, far from it. "  

 

CLEGG on his reading habits: 

"I've just finished a book called the Somnabulist by Essie Fox, who is the wife of my previous chief executive Chris Fox and I've just started two nights ago Jonathan Freedland's latest book, the Sam Bourne [Pantheon]..

"Funnily enough, I don't read thrillers very much. I always read a novel. I can't finish the day without reading a novel. I've read novels every night all my life. And I have I'm afraid an unhealthy disinterest in political biographies, especially autobiographies where politicians say 'I was great I was wot done it'"

 

CLEGG on his tips for rearing boys [he has three]:

I have no tips to give because I fail on every single argument [with the children]. [But] I've got quite disciplinarian about no computer games during the week at all. So I kind of won that battle after months of attrition. But they can watch a bit of telly in the evening before going to bed." 

 

CLEGG on whether the Lib Dems could work with Labour after a hung Parliament:

 

"We are in coalition with the Conservatives now but the idea that because of that Liberal Democrats have some sort of infinite association with one of the other parties rather than the other, I think is a nonsense. We will always remain an independent party drawing on a very different and distinct liberal tradition, liberal philosophy that sets us apart from both. We are in coalition now a) because no one won the election, b) it was the only arithmetical combination that worked but c) really crucially because the country is in very unusual times economically so we needed to take unusual steps to provide a kind of bedrock of good government for a country which otherwise was kind of skating on thin ice economically. I've no idea whether those conditions will repeat themselves or not, no idea at all."

 

"I stick to the view that I said in probably ten thousand interviews in the run up the general election. What happens after an election which no one wins should be driven over and beyond everything else by the decision taken by voters. The voters stacked the cards in a direction which made a Conservative Liberal Democrat Coaliton the only outcome. Not me, not David Cameron, not Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown in fact was very keen to try and sort of reverse that. But the marching instructions we had received from voters were crystal clear: this was the only combination which would work. And that should be our guide always: what do the voters say?"