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About Nick Clegg MP
Nick Clegg MP - Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Deputy Prime Minister
Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam
Nick Clegg
Miriam and I have three young sons - Antonio, Alberto and Miguel. We divide our time between London and my constituency in Sheffield. Miriam works as a Partner in an international law firm. We were married in her home town in Spain in 2000.
I grew up in Oxfordshire with two brothers and a sister in a large extended family. My mother is Dutch and my father is half Russian. I guess that helps explain my internationalist outlook, and why I learned a number of European languages (Dutch, French, German, Spanish).
I studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge and afterwards continued my post graduate studies at the University of Minnesota and the College of Europe in Bruges. I then spent some time in New York, working as a trainee journalist with Christopher Hitchens, as a consultant in London, and in Budapest writing about economic reform having won a prize from the Financial Times. Later I moved to Brussels where I worked for five years for the European Commission. My job included managing aid projects in Central Asia following the collapse of communism and acting as a trade negotiator with China and Russia as a senior member of Leon Brittan's office, then Vice President of the EC.
In 1999 I was elected Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands - the first liberal Parliamentarian in the whole region since the 1930s. As an MEP, I co-founded the Campaign for Parliamentary Reform, which led calls for reforms to expenses, transparency and accountability in the European Parliament. I was also the Trade and Industry Spokesman for the Liberal group of MEPs and piloted a radical new law breaking up telecoms monopolies.
The travelling life of an MEP was difficult to reconcile with a young family and in 2004 I stood down as an MEP. I lectured part-time at Sheffield and Cambridge Universities before being elected as Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam in 2005.
I became Europe spokesman in Charles Kennedy's shadow cabinet, acting as deputy to Menzies (Ming) Campbell. When Ming won the 2006 leadership election, I became Shadow Home Secretary. In this position, I led the Liberal Democrats' defence of civil liberties, proposing a Freedom Bill to repeal unnecessary and illiberal legislation, campaigned against ID Cards and the retention of innocent people's DNA, and argued against excessive counter-terrorism legislation. Together with my colleagues I also forced the Government into a symbolic defeat in a debate on the lop-sided Trans Atlantic Extradition Treaty signed by Tony Blair's Government which sacrificed basic safeguards for British citizens.
I was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats in December 2007 after a leadership campaign in which I focused on reaching out beyond the party to new voters. After so many years of alternate Labour and Conservative Governments making the same mistakes, I am proud of the difference the Lib Dems bring to British politics: on civil liberties, on the environment, on greater fairness in the tax system, on international affairs and on reforming the outdated ways of Westminster. I strongly believe the economic recession makes the need for real change in Britain greater still.
Every week since becoming leader I have travelled across the country to explain my values and to talk to people about the issues that they care most about. I particularly enjoy my regular town hall meetings where any member of the public can question me on (almost!) any topic they choose.
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