THE NEW LEADER SHOULD WEAR A DRESS MORE OFTEN

I voted for Nick Clegg in December, the first time I have ever backed a winner. I must confess to not following the campaign very closely as (i) it was rather lacklustre (ii) I had made my mind up before it began. Now since he’s been elected, the sense of expectation among what might perjoratively be called the ‘Westminster elite’ is almost palpable. Nick has been presented as a new, young face for our party extremely well and he has made the predictable bland speeches typical to any new party leader these days promising change.

Unfortunately for me, and possibly others, this ‘message‘ lacks a degree of credibility because it was made by someone outside of my - and most voters' - experience. Quite simply, there remains something missing in Nick’s public persona: there is an almost complete lack of any ‘hinterland’.

Now I am sure that he has done many interesting things. Becoming an MP in itself requires a strength of character which is unlikely to suit the bookish stamp collector (apologies to the inevitable such person who receives their salary from the Treasury...) and this work is likely to reflect earlier experiences in people’s lives. However, information about Nick’s youth is restricted to one cactus burning incident which is wearily dragged out every time someone needs something interesting about him.

Just for fun I tried to devise a silly quiz about Nick for colleagues at Christmas which was intended to include some of the stranger aspects of his life. I had no intention to be mean, just to amuse and to get to know him better myself. The internet is a wonderful source of such trivia but just try to find out something about Nick online. There is surprisingly little. In fact, there is none. I imagine that more information will come out in the months ahead but I find it surprising that a public figure has almost no persona outside of politics.

Too late for my quiz – which I made up entirely and which was consequently far more scandalous – I discovered that he had been on a road trip in the USA with Louis Theroux and that somewhere in the world there is a picture of him in drag. This is interesting, mildly amusing and it demonstrates that Nick Clegg the Media Performer can also be Nick Clegg the Human Being. A mere moment’s reflection brings one back to Charles Kennedy, who was famously complemented as being ‘a fully paid up member of the human race’. There is a lesson there…

Now, it is clearly not a good idea in a world in which the rotten, bile-drenched Daily Mail is allowed to exist for politicians to wear drag, smoke drugs or do anything else which might offend the mythical ‘Middle England’ of the editor’s vacant dreams but there must be more to Nick than just the fact that he went to Europe (gasp!), worked for Leon Brittan (cripes!), married someone who is not British (shock, horror!) and was spoken of favourably by St Paddy of Ashdown (contented sighs).

This invective needs a point and this is it: we should embrace our new leader, support him 100% in his efforts to move us into the mainstream as the Tories falter and Labour disintegrates. However, we - and I particuarly refer to those guiding the Great Man in his first steps in the limelight – must also demonstrate that he is a human being, not a celebrity. In his first speech, he made a commitment to leave the Westminster bubble every single week and I will be watching to see if that commitment is honoured particularly closely.

[I really have b***ered any prospects of advancement, haven't I...]