When the FT revealed today that former Lib Dem leader and deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was joining Facebook as a head of global affairs, there was a predictable chorus of outrage from Labour MPs.
In a statement, Labour’s Jon Trickett decried Clegg’s new position as:
‘a damning indictment of the sorry state of our country’s politics that, at a time when digital giants such as Facebook are rightly coming under public scrutiny, our former Deputy Prime Minister has been hired to lobby on their behalf.
Labour is committed to slamming shut the revolving door between politics and big business, which for too long has corroded public trust in politics.’
But while Labour have a point about former politicians’ plushy positions, are they in any position to moan about the startlingly close relationship between political parties and the social media giants?
Mr S seems to remember the Corbynites being far less queasy about getting into bed with Facebook in 2017, when they handed the digital giant over £500,000 for online adverts in the run up to the election.
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