As Facebook's global affairs chief, Clegg has been tasked by Mark Zuckerberg with defending the social media behemoth -- and its role in helping to facilitate the January 6 insurrection -- in the aftermath of a damning leak of thousands of internal company documents.
Facebook has tried to discredit the leaks as a partial view, and argues it does try to keep the platform safe. But how could a man who led a party called Liberal Democrats defend a company accused of flouting the spirit of both those words? Well, this is the same Nick Clegg who became the deputy prime minister of the UK after winning over then quickly letting down younger voters with his straight-talking, nice bloke style that seemed to go down well after the financial crisis.
Fairer taxes, no more nukes, give the planet a cuddle, that sort of thing. But it wasn't long before those who got swept up in Cleggmania google it felt betrayed by their hero. When Clegg's Liberal Democrats finished third in , they were forced to enter a coalition with the Conservative Party to ensure a majority government.
In the world of liberal British politics, there are few things worse than cozying up to the party of Margaret Thatcher. As Prime Minister David Cameron's 2, Clegg would ultimately endorse painful austerity measures, then go on to make himself even less popular with young voters by u-turning on his manifesto commitment to not increase tuition fees.
The rest is history, culminating in this apology video and its numerous spoofs. I knew, within minutes, this was an outsider on top of his game.
The relative amateur eyeballed the camera; he smiled; he stressed he wasn't "them"; and he said we couldn't go on with the old ways. His pitch was that he was "an honest straight guy, above the fray". That's for you to judge. Above the fray? No way. He was calmly possessed with his purpose. David Cameron looked frit; Gordon Brown in self-confident denial. I felt it was "game, set and match" to Clegg very early on.
As the 90 minutes charged by, he did little to change my view. The others stumbled from "I agree with Nick" to caustic barbs which only made it worse for them. My view was confirmed in the spin-room. On that night, the Lib Dems successfully and unexpectedly defended Torbay, Bath, Chippenham and Lewes but still managed to end the fray with four fewer seats than they went to war with.
From leaders saying "I agree with Nick" to not enough voters agreeing with Nick. It was an amazing event but may have left Clegg wondering "what was that all about? In the list of most stupid political decisions, the Tories' agreement to TV debates should rank near the top.
When you are ahead in the polls you don't agree to a potential game changer. Unfortunately, anxious to please Rupert Murdoch's Sky News and with an exaggerated confidence in David Cameron's message, the Tories gambled. At that first debate Nick Clegg channelled the anti-politics mood of the post expenses scandal era. On the sidelines, I watched the colour drain from Tory spin-doctors' faces.
The Clegg bubble did enough to disrupt the Tory campaign and produce a hung parliament. But the man who promised a new politics was guilty of the worst kind of politics when he broke his promise on tuition fees. I doubt he'll ever recover. An optician from Burnley, Lancashire, who pressed the party leaders on crime during the first TV debate. I went along to the first debate because I wanted to speak to all the politicians about the problem of crime in northern towns.
I was impressed with Nick Clegg's answer — I think he connected far better with the audience. He used names quite a lot which the other two didn't. I didn't know much about him before that night, but I was impressed and I definitely got caught up in "Cleggmania". I thought his whole campaign was very successful; he made everybody listen to him — maybe the first time for the Lib Dems.
He's between a rock and a hard place; I don't see how he could have done things much differently. He's compromised his political goals, unfortunately, but I don't see that he had a choice. A year ago I drew him for the first time as a bright young contender in the leadership debate boxing match, his heavyweight opponents battered and bruised by comparison. Then came the coalition and little Nick became the central character in his own political fairytale, tripping off into the woods as "Little Clegg Riding Hood" with his basket of electoral reform clutched closely to his yellow cape while the rightwing Tory Wolf lay in wait.
The fairytale didn't last, but I found no shortage of Clegg metaphors to chart his hapless progress. He was the RCA dog listening to his master's voice, a cracked record repeating "We're all in this together" over and over.
When Cameron and his wife had a baby, Clegg was "Nanny Mcpheeble" struggling with coalition disposable nappies, and when Cameron returned from his globetrotting adventures faithful old Nick was the Downing Street Doormat for Dave to wipe his feet on.
And then came the great student fees betrayal, and Nick Clegg really had gone all the way in his relationship with the Tories. I drew him puffing on a post-coital cigarette, full of self-loathing, as his partner promises him a Tory peerage. That is the thing about Nick. He has been prepared to do what it takes to be in government and he wants to be taken seriously. But his bland good looks, the boyish hair and twinkling eyes conspire against him. He is the coalition clown, part lightning rod, part punchbag, but always ridiculous.
It is the historical fate of vice-presidents in America visited now on our "vice prime minister". Liberal Democrat leaders are a blank sheet of paper until their first general election. So when the nation tuned in to the first leaders' debate they were amazed to discover there was something else on offer, Nick Clegg. I was jealous that night of the others in the spin room, having already committed to being in a TV studio. His stock rose to an unsustainable level.
He went from comparisons with Churchill to Hitler in one week. It was a strange moment of X Factor mania meets regular politics.
The tabloid attacks were inevitable. At HQ, those for whom this was a first election were swept up by the possibilities. Those who had lived through the SDP bubble and other false dawns were quietly sceptical. Like most manias, Cleggmania was always a delusion: a decent and modestly competent second-order politician thrust by the media into the role of hero-statesman. To be sure, the opinion polls reported that in the first TV debate he performed well in viewers' eyes; but only one voter in four watched and undoubtedly a disproportionate number of them were already Lib Dem supporters.
Essentially a non-event, the debate was trumpeted as a major one. Then, after the election, David Cameron, to everyone's surprise, offered Clegg and his followers posts in a coalition government.
With the financial markets in turmoil, it was an offer that Clegg could not refuse. As deputy prime minister and David Cameron's new soulmate, he was made to look even more heroic and statesmanlike.
Now he is cast in the role of villain. Throughout those four years, the experience looked, from the outside, like a terrible ordeal for Clegg. He had the power and visibility to be at the forefront of any policy development, but not enough—apparently—to stick to his promises. In , a referendum to reform the voting system, another pillar of Lib Dem ideology, went awry with confusing wording and poor communication. The majority of those who voted chose to stick with the current system which, among other things, favors the large parties over smaller ones and makes coalitions less likely.
In , after big losses for the Liberal Democrats in another general election, Clegg resigned. Then, in , came the decisive blow of the Brexit referendum. Pro-Europe Cameron called the referendum with a plan to silence the Brexit camp forever. Instead, the country voted to leave, by a tiny margin. Cameron resigned. With his time in power over, Clegg—who had seen his popularity dwindle and his approval ratings turn negative— turned his attention to pro-Europe campaigning, but also—it seems—side meetings with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.
Seeing Clegg in his protector-of-Facebook role is still rather mind-bending for those who felt the excitement of those debates. They might wonder how the man has again found himself as an apologist for higher-ups Zuckerberg this time instead of Cameron even though he has moved so far from the political arena where he first fell into that role.
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