The former Lib Dem leader on learning to love the Tories – and the fate of the euro
‘Have you ever been in the world’s smallest lift?’ Paddy Ashdown asks when we meet at the entrance to the House of Lords. ‘It was designed by William Gladstone!’ We travel up in the lift, admiring the old-fashioned sliding doors and suited attendant. Ashdown explains that the parliamentary authorities tried to shut it down on health and safety grounds but, he says proudly, he fought to keep it open. ‘My greatest parliamentary achievement,’ he keeps saying — only half joking.
He’s still talking about the lift when we reach his office and sit down: ‘A proper Liberal Democrat council campaign,’ he declares. It is typical Ashdown — constant energy, always up for a scrap: aged 70, he has more kick to him than most politicians half his age. It is these qualities which have made him such an invaluable support for his protégé Nick Clegg.
Ashdown, who led the Liberal Democrats for 11 years after their founding in 1988, has made himself the chief defender of Clegg’s coalition to the party’s grass roots.
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