Sean Kemp

Even a ‘Never Kissed a Tory’ t-shirt wouldn’t have helped Nick Clegg during PMQs

There are only two occasions in my life where I have had lengthy, in-depth debates about where grown adults should sit. One was planning my wedding. The other was PMQs.

The reason for the second discussion was raised by Nick Clegg on Newsnight yesterday when he said that sitting mutely next to David Cameron at the weekly session may have been his worst mistake (for clarity I suspect he meant in presentational terms rather than his biggest mistake in government as a whole).

There is quite a bit of validity to this point. Most people still get their political news from the evening broadcasts, and every Wednesday they saw Clegg sitting silently next to Cameron while he defended policies that the Lib Dems were sometimes uncomfortable with, or had actually managed to change from their original versions. He had to be silent as Labour MPs attacked him, silent as Cameron merrily took credit for Lib Dem policies like raising the income tax threshold.

And, as people never tired of saying, he looked glum.

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