Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

In defence of Nick Clegg

As I write, the sneering at Nick Clegg has started. The first cuckoo I’ve heard in this chorus is calling from the left. Last week Nesrine Malik in the Guardian launched a scornful attack on Mr Clegg’s decision to quit public life in Britain and join Facebook in America. ‘Thanks for nothing,’ she says.

I feel sad about the paper Ms Malik writes for. The Guardian took an historic wrong-turning when in 2010 it decided not to be interested in the possibilities for centre/-centre–left co-operation. These days the paper often sounds like the voice of the Labour left: rasping and angry rather than the open-minded and inquisitive liberal voice it once was. Malik and her fellow Guardian columnist Gary Younge last week removed themselves from the nominations for this year’s Comment Awards on the grounds that they didn’t want to be on the same list as my Times colleague Melanie Phillips. This is the first time I’ve seen ‘no-platforming’ invading mainstream Fleet Street and it’s a baleful development. Am I to stop writing for The Spectator on the grounds that I don’t want to appear between the same covers as (say) Rod Liddle or James Delingpole? But I love being in the same magazine as these nincompoops, offering readers (as I suppose) respite. One has a civic duty as a columnist to show readers there is a better world.

But this column’s purpose is to lament the fate of men and women in public life today who have tried to steer a middle course, only to be mocked — or, worse, savaged — by the extremes of left and right in our new century. Malik accused Clegg of ‘quite simply fleeing the scene’. She complains about those who, on quitting politics, seek work outside politics that is well-rewarded. Her targets all seem to be centrists.

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