Politicians boasting about the women they’ve slept with is not candour: it’s spin

David Short

I think that from now on this should be a compulsory question in all interviews with male politicians.

You can tell a lot about the man by the answer.

I know I'd have to sit down and think for a bit, not least about 'what counts' or not.

Which doesn't make me very proud of myself, but then again I'm not asking for your vote or wanting to lord it over you.

I wouldn't vote for any man who had more than three before getting married, and one of those three would have to be his wife.

And escort agency ladies don't count. Anyone who pays for it cannot be trusted.

We should excuse female politicians from this question. Call me old-fashioned.

Joanne

Well now we know Clegg is a Lib Dem in bed as well! Not good not bad.....blah blah blah

Noblesse Oblige

Clegg's boorish insensitivity strikes me as relatively benign and victimless (the conquests are not named) by comparison with that of the pachyderm Edwina Currie, whose victims were, and were intended to be Mr and Mrs Major. By definition, women are not gentleman. But Clegg may once have been one. Even looked at on his own terms, thirty is hardly a number to boast about. Some men do not disclose it to the world, but have hundreds, even thousands of conquests. His boast therefore is meaningless on every level.

Kevyn Bodman

Nick Clegg is a fool for answering the question.

Is he a fool in other areas, too?

Rod Liddle is correct, candour on genuine policy issues is to be desired.
We don't get it because some politicians are scared to articulate their policy positions and because some haven't thought about them.

These factors contribute to the disrespect and even scorn that many people, I proudly include myself in this category,have for many politicians.

TomTom

Was this during his time as an MEP ? He must have done something to while away the time

Blue Porcupine

"I wouldn't vote for any man who had more than three before getting married, and one of those three would have to be his wife."

Then you, David Short, are what's wrong and sick about this country.

Blue Porcupine

Incidentally, while I think it's right to be suspicious of politicians' motives in giving interviews, Clegg as much as anyone, it simply isn't true that the Lib Dems are reluctant to make policy positions clear.

There are more costed Lib Dem policy papers, reviews, reports, executive summaries etc in the public domain than there is for both the other two parties put together. You think Rod Liddle has ever bothered to write about any of that? Rather undercuts his own point, IMHO.

Concerned citoyens of the centre-right intelligentsia should go and read Lib Dem policy papers and argue out any weaknesses, not sling this particularly childish and disproveable sort of mud.

http://www.libdems.org.uk/party/policy/

Austin Barry

The possibly unconscious sub-text of Clegg's confession is that he is a potent successor to leaders who through age or alcohol may have been otherwise. Unfortunately though he is the leader of a party of institutionalised impotence and no crass tallying of personal caperings can elevate a eunuch into Priapus.

Kevyn Bodman

Blue Porcupine may be correct about the LibDems' published policy positions; and until a few weeks ago I would have applauded them for it.
But Clegg's utterly disgraceful tactics over the Lisbon Treaty refrendum vote (a whipped abstention, absurd) has blown all his, and their credibility.

That reaction might be extreme, it might not be strictly rational even, but politics is about perceptions as much as reality and Clegg is seen as a smoothy shyster.And now a sleazeball.
Calamity Clegg.

This is It

It can be hard to tell whether it is pure foolishness or mis-placed prudence. I remember the fellow taking over the New York governorship from Elliot Spitzer - the blind guy taking over from the hypocrite. He felt it prudent to go ahead and tell about the bad spot in his marriage where he & his wife had both temporarily found someone else. In his case, the (perhaps) misplaced prudence is understandable. Not sure about Clegg.

Harry Osbourne

It simply boils down to the fact that that Nick Clegg, in answering the question, has demonstrated that he is not a gentleman; not that we expect that quality in our politicians anyway any more.
Contrast Nick with Ken, now there's a man who's a doer, not a talker.

feverpill

Short, you're old-fashioned.

Max Kaye

Clegg's first error was talking to Piers Morgan. His second was not saying something along the lines of "this is none of your, or anybody else's, business".

Ken is into newtonian biology: amphibians do spawn, after all.

Tim Chapman

Ron Liddle says Mr Tsvangirai makes him twinchy. It's a sensible reaction. I expect that if he takes over from the current incumbent monster, his country will still be disfunctional a few years from now. I sthere any evidence from the history of Africa to predict otherwise?

Hugh Wain

Well said.

Tony S

As you touched on the subject of knocking one out Rod. I bet you knocked this off in five minutes, probably setting a record in the process; nice one.