What did Nick Clegg get up to at Cambridge?

I am not sure that I quite envy James Delingpole, cast as a teddy bear-carrying social climber in When Boris Met Dave, Channel 4’s drama-documentary about the future Tory leader’s time at Oxford. But I do feel a bit peeved that my generation is about to seize power and I can’t even claim a bit part. If Channel 4 were minded to delve into Nick Clegg’s time at Cambridge I wouldn’t even make that — for the simple reason that in the three years I spent there with him I failed even to hear of him.

Failing to meet the man who this time next week may be power-broking the next government of the United Kingdom might be understandable had I spent more time in libraries and laboratories. But I was fascinated by politics at the time. I was a member of the Conservative Association (CUCA), the Liberal Democrat/SDP Alliance, the Union Society, the lot. It ought to have been impossible for me not to meet a future political phenomenon. But I didn’t. And what’s more, after a ring-around of politically minded friends I still can’t find anyone who ever did bump into him. Little would I have guessed that the future Lib Dem leader was not to be found among the earnest student politicians at the Union Society, but treading the boards next door at the Amateur Dramatic Club (ADC) theatre as the HIV-positive lover of a gay activist.

Maybe the youthful Clegg was trying to make himself invisible. He chose Robinson College, then the newly founded baby of local philanthropist David Robinson, founder of the Radio Rentals chain. Although fairly central to the town, and just across the road from the university library, it certainly wouldn’t have been a natural choice for an undergraduate who wanted to flaunt his background from a leading public school — unless, that is, his priority was a private bathroom.