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Tuesday 2 December 2008

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Nick Clegg’s sex confession shows why politicians should never try to look normal

Is 30 a lot? Hard to know. I’d say it is, but ask around and you get a lot of different answers. Clegg is 41, and he has been married since he was 32. In his gap year, ten years earlier, he worked as a ski instructor. A few weeks ago, perhaps significantly, he told the Guardian that he was ‘quite Dutch, culturally speaking’. So, assuming that he has been sexually active since he was 16, and assuming (perhaps charitably, for a Lib Dem) that he has never played away, we are talking 30 women in 16 years, or slightly under two per annum. Put like that it doesn’t sound too bad, although one does start to wonder why he never had any long-term relationships which kept his score down, or whether he did, and was just very Dutch indeed.

Look, I know I’m being horribly invasive. That’s the whole point. I didn’t start it. Nick Clegg did. What the hell is he doing telling Piers Morgan about his sex life? Why does he have any desire for us to know? I’d be happier if I thought he had just blurted it out, blindsided by Morgan’s persistence. But no. In the same interview, on the drugs issue, he didn’t give an inch. So I think he thought about it. I think he said to himself, ‘The public have a right to know what kind of chap they are dealing with. A shagger. Woof!’ He probably thought he was being refreshingly candid. A breath of fresh air. A dose of normality. Etc.

Lord, spare us from politicians trying to look normal. Nobody looks normal under the lens, them least of all. They get it wrong. They think 14 pints is normal. In fact, when politician go out of their way to look normal, that’s the least normal they ever look. Think of the Tory minister’s kiss by the garden gate, or the Hamilton-esque freakshow of reality television. Think of David Cameron, inviting ITN to film his toddlers having breakfast. Does he even realise how gruesome that is? Does Clegg?

It’s not normal. It makes you think they wouldn’t know normal if it bit them. Normal people run a mile from that kind of stuff. And this is coming from a columnist whose ‘I’ button is worn nearly smooth. You don’t see me announcing how many people I’ve slept with, do you? Because it’s none of your bloody business. Clear off.

More articles from: Hugo Rifkind | this section

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